


Cage 1

by reilgun



Series: Fade [1]
Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Child Abuse, Eating Disorders, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Original Character(s), Trans Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2020-12-09 16:49:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 38,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20998115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reilgun/pseuds/reilgun
Summary: Given the source material, it should be assumed that there will be a lot of intense and horrific events happening here. I will not be tagging every single thing that shows up, as that would severely change the reader's relationship with the story. That said, I have tagged that which will be most prominently explored in the story.I do not intend to have an excess of graphic depictions of the terrible things that happen. I don't think it's necessary to get the point across in a lot of cases, and it could very easily turn away some readers.The story lacks significant Worm spoilers, but assumes base knowledge of the universe to fully understand it.Thank you to my friends for proofreading and editing my work to the point of coherency. I hope you enjoy.EDIT: I will eventually rewrite this first chapter. It is the weakest part of the story by far, and that is not a good thing to have for your opening. That said, I hope you can make it through the rough parts of chapter one and enjoy the story it leads into.EDIT 2: Nah. Sorry, you'll just have to deal with it.





	1. Cage 1.1

**Author's Note:**

> Given the source material, it should be assumed that there will be a lot of intense and horrific events happening here. I will not be tagging every single thing that shows up, as that would severely change the reader's relationship with the story. That said, I have tagged that which will be most prominently explored in the story.
> 
> I do not intend to have an excess of graphic depictions of the terrible things that happen. I don't think it's necessary to get the point across in a lot of cases, and it could very easily turn away some readers.
> 
> The story lacks significant Worm spoilers, but assumes base knowledge of the universe to fully understand it.
> 
> Thank you to my friends for proofreading and editing my work to the point of coherency. I hope you enjoy.
> 
> EDIT: I will eventually rewrite this first chapter. It is the weakest part of the story by far, and that is not a good thing to have for your opening. That said, I hope you can make it through the rough parts of chapter one and enjoy the story it leads into.
> 
> EDIT 2: Nah. Sorry, you'll just have to deal with it.

“Maybe flight?” I let the words sit in the air for a little bit, and Rey did the same. The hush of night always provided a sort of weight to everything. It made even silly conversations feel like the sharing of intimate secrets. After a few moments, he shifted onto his side to look at me. I matched him.

“You’ve never expressed any interest in Mover shit.”

“Yeah, I mean..” I paused for a second and looked into his light green eyes, collecting my thoughts. “Normally, yeah, I guess I don’t find that subset of powers all too appealing. It’s hard to deny, though, that they’d make life easier. They’re kind of boring, but if we’re talking about what we’d _ realistically _ like to have, then.. yeah, flight seems pretty invaluable in a combat situation.”

“I mean hey, I’m convinced. Maybe it’d help with my fear of heights.” He gave me a slight smile, barely detectable in the dark of my room.

“Or maybe it’d make them worse.” I smiled back at him, briefly, before rolling onto my back again. “I’ve always thought that was kind of fucked how many capes get freaky powers. I think no matter what it wouldn’t outweigh the benefits, but it’s still creepy to think about.”

“Mm, yeah.” I saw Rey stare at me from the corner of my vision for a while before rolling over to face the wall. “Some kind of Changer sounds nice.”

“There’s a lot of ways that could go wrong. You could get freaky arms.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think I’d want that.”

“Mm.”

* * *

I was alone when my alarm woke me. I surveyed the room and found our backpacks next to each other. I realized after a few groggy blinks that the hum I could hear was the shower. I took the opportunity to get dressed and then started making breakfast.

“Burnt eggs, my favorite.” Rey’s voice roused me out of a fog I didn’t realize I’d fallen into, and I worked as fast as I could to recover the meal. At least the toast was fine.

“Shit, sorry. I’m really out of it, I think my Dad woke me up while getting ready for work or something.” I scraped the pan clean as I spoke. “You know, _ you _ could’ve woken me up before you dirtied my towel.”

“Aw, but you looked so peaceful.” I glared at him, but his orange juice-stained smirk matched his damp orange hair so perfectly that I couldn’t maintain it. I punched his arm and smiled back.

“Jackass. You deserve this,” I took a moment to think of a joke, “sunny side crust.” I looked over at him. “Crusty side up?”

“Neither of those are anything to write home about, but the second’s acceptable.”

“I’ll take it.” I brought the plates over and sat across from him, watching him eat. Stalling. After a few minutes I looked down at my own food and poked at it with my fork. I downed my entire half glass of orange juice, then exaggeratedly slammed it on the table. I cleared my throat and put on my best guy voice. “Looks pretty bad, boss. Might have to call in damage control.”

“You sure? Damage control says you might be a wimp.”

“Never hurts to play it safe, sir. Can’t risk the potential poisoning on the day of the exam.” Even with how much he’d eaten, there was still less food on my plate than his. I dropped the act and pushed it over to him. “You can have it if you want, I’ll steal a little something from your lunch.” He eyed the plate and then squinted at me, swallowing.

“Promise?” His voice was harder than I was used to. I looked him in the eyes.

“Promise. Thank you.” He nodded and returned to his meal. I got up and walked back towards my room, stopping as I passed my Dad’s door. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d seen it left open like that. I discarded the train of thought before it lead anywhere. I could think about it on the way to school. I finished the original trip and got everything packed, then brought our bags downstairs. Rey was just finishing running the dishes under some water, and he turned to me.

“Wow, you’re ready early. Wait a second..” He stared me down. “You’re not the real Quinn, are you? Damn it, I was a fool to think that Stranger-B-Gone was anything but a scam.” I played along, striking an evil pose.

“Close, but not quite. I’m actually six kids in a Quinn-shaped suit, and we’re here to steal your homework."

“Oh, sick.”

“Right?” I started putting on my boots. “Yeah, each of us is a low level Tinker that excels in making small parts of full body disguises.”

“Is that so?” He followed my lead, tying a knot a toddler could outdo.

“Yeah, we’ve got two guys here for each arm, same for the legs, and then one each for the torso and head. It’s amazing we all managed to find each other. I’m not sure what I’d do without these guys.” I finished lacing up and grabbed my bag, taking a deep breath. “All set?”

“Yep.” I brought us out the door and locked it as he went ahead. I caught back up to him and we walked to the bus stop. We didn’t say much as we mentally prepared for the next eight hours, and before I knew it we were on wheels.

I stared out the window and thought about my Dad. Thought about my Mom. Thought about food and math and villains and Endbringers and Rey. I leaned my head on his shoulder the rest of the way there.

* * *

First period was uneventful, and we went our separate ways after that. Second period was even worse without him. Third had been an absolute slog, and the only thing stopping Fourth from following this pattern was the knowledge that lunch would be soon enough.

When it came, I sat at the corner table as far away as I could from Vincent, the nonverbal kid. He never seemed to care for the company, but it’s not like he ever objected to me being nearby. I looked between the sludge on my tray and the entrance, waiting for Rey. Normally we would’ve met up in line, or at my locker, but it hadn’t happened. My anxiety built up, and after ten minutes I couldn’t stay put any longer. I left my untouched food behind as I went to find my friend.

I hurried through the school in search of anything out of the ordinary, a sign of what might be going on. I tried my best to hide how concerned I was, but my pace undoubtedly gave me away. A couple students asked me what was wrong as I passed the art room, but I ignored them. I felt no particular need to reward them for making my life harder by blocking the doorway. At least they weren’t on the stairs.

After searching everywhere I was allowed and checking the cafeteria once again, I caved and decided to talk to a teacher. I located Mr. Larson and tried to get his attention. He raised a chubby finger and spoke to no one. I impatiently waited for him to finish up his bluetooth call, and after a painful minute and a half of listening to his nasally voice, he turned to me.

“How can I help you, Quinn?” He gave me a warm smile, adding to the list of evidence that he didn’t get how important this was.

“Rey was with you last class, do you know where he is?” I said the words a little faster than I’d intended, but he didn’t seem to mind.

“Ah, Reynold went home early. I’m sorry you’ve been worrying-” I cut him off.

“Early? Why? What happened?”

“There was a misunderstanding that lead to a few students getting riled up, that’s all.” His smile faltered slightly, but he seemed committed to making it work.

“Thanks.” I left for the main office, Mr. Larson’s voice being drowned out by the ringing in my ears. _ They think we’re all so fucking stupid. _ I burst through the door with enough force that it would’ve dented the wall if not for the rubber stopper.

“Hi, Ms. Kelly. What do you need?” The secretary kept her focus on some paperwork as she spoke, effectively nullifying any impact my entrance would’ve made. She was used to my shit. I’d have to change things up to keep people from underestimating me, but that was a concern for another time.

“I need to go.” I advanced towards the desk. She swiveled slightly in my direction.

“Are you sick?”

“Rey went home and I need to help him.”

“If you aren’t sick or otherwise in any medical danger, you can’t leave. You should know this by now.” I glared at her and thought of outs. I could threaten to hurt myself, but that would probably lead to it taking even longer. I could ditch, but the long-term complications that’d come from that weren’t worth it. I could-

“Let me talk to the counselor.” She glanced over at me and sighed, then picked up the phone and dialed.

“Mm, hi, I’ve got a Ms. Kelly in the office.. mhm, she says she needs to talk with you.. okay, thank you.” She hung up and met my eyes. “He’ll be here in a minute.” She went back to filling out forms. I chose not to say anything in response and stepped to the side. For all of the complex things I was feeling, I couldn’t even begin to sort them out.

The counselor thankfully arrived before my head had the chance to explode. He silently gestured for me to come in, presumably to not disturb the secretary, and I followed his lead up until the point he sat down. I decided, instead, to stand behind one of two guest chairs. I had to hold on to the little things I could control, to make a statement.

“What’s troubling you, Quinn?” His voice was frustratingly soothing. I could practically see it crawling out of his thin lips like a molasses ghost rising from the grave.

“You know what’s wrong. I need you to let me go so I can talk with Rey. He needs me.”

“We both know I can’t do that. I’m here to help you work this out, though. Let’s talk about it, okay?”

“No! No, I need you to pull some strings for me. Please, David, I need this. More than anything else I’ve ever needed, okay? This isn’t some flimsy excuse, I need this.”

“We’ve made it through this every time an issue has come up, I know we can do it again.”

“_We? _ No, no, _ I’m _ the one who has to deal with the mess when the bell rings, I’m the one who has to explain to my best friend that my grades are apparently more important than him! There’s no ‘we’ here, this is my problem and you’re standing in my way.”

“Quinn, you’re panicking.” I slammed my hand on the desk.

“No, I’m not, I’m mad! I’m mad because none of you are taking this seriously! I’m mad because this is happening _ again _ and nobody’s doing anything! I could be there for him right now, I could be helping him, I could be doing him a lot better than any of you _ ever _ have if you just.. if you..” I stopped myself, feeling the fight suddenly drain out of me before I could even finish the sentence. It was not an experience I was unfamiliar with. With the momentum killed, I sat in the chair and stared at David’s nametag, taking a deep breath. “This is the fourth time it’s gotten bad enough he had to go home. We’ve been doing this for two years and it’s only getting worse.”

“You’ve known Reynold for a long time, right?” I nodded. “You probably know him better than anyone else. Now, I may not know him as well as you do, but I don’t think he’d be very happy to see you like this. He’s strong enough to handle this on his own for a few hours, right?” I took a second before nodding again. “The rest of the staff and I are working as hard as we can to handle things, and I give you my _ word _ that this will get better. After today, I think some real action can be taken.” I looked up at him.

“You mean it?” I tried to sound less desperate than I felt.

“I do. We’re entering an age of progress, I can feel it.” I relaxed in my chair somewhat, and he took the cue to do the same. “Now, how about we talk for a little bit and then get you back to class. Does that sound good, Quinn?”

“Yeah. Thank you.”

* * *

I stood outside the front door of Rey’s house and, for the first time in my life, I hesitated to knock. He hadn’t responded to my texts, and he’d ignored my call. I didn’t want to bother him with more, but the temptation was there. It wasn’t unheard of for him to want some time alone, but he almost always let me know that’s what was going on. I had avoided thinking of the worst case scenarios, but that was getting harder and harder as time went on. I took a deep breath to stabilize myself and knocked. Ms. Green opened the door a minute later.

“Hi, Quinn, I thought it might be you. Come on in.” She gave me a sympathetic smile and gestured for me to enter. I did so and she closed the door behind me. “He’s in his room.”

“Thanks Mrs. G.” I walked down to the end of the hall and hesitated again as I stood outside his door. I only let that last a couple seconds before slowly creaking it open. I kept my voice soft as I spoke into the dark. “Hey, Commander, sorry I’m late. Fought tooth and nail to get here sooner, but you know how the enemy can be.” I could hear Rey shifting around under his blanket.

“Not now.” He sounded defeated, vulnerable in a way I’d never heard from him quite like this. I came in and closed the door as quietly as I could.

“You want some light?” I felt around for the lightswitch.

“No.” I stopped and paused for a good while. The silence told me more than anything he could’ve said.

“David says we might really be making progress. I didn’t believe him at first, but it seems like he might be right. With luck, this’ll be the last time we have to deal with those assholes.”

“I don’t care.”

“What do you mean you don’t care? We’re so close to a real win.” I took a couple steps towards his bed.

“There’s always someone else, Quinn. Something else. What does a victory matter when people like them are never going to go away? It’s not like they’re the only ones who think I’m a..” I couldn’t make out the last word, but the amount of vitriol in his voice let me fill in the blanks.

“Ah, Rey, I didn’t..” I decided to go over and sit on the edge of the bed rather than finish my thought. I put my hand on what I was fairly certain was his shoulder. “People.. suck.” We stayed like that for a few minutes, eventually reaching a point where we were breathing in sync. I pulled my hand back as he moved into a sitting position and turned on a dim lamp, illuminating the injuries. His swollen eye bled into his freckles and his frizzy hair looked matted where blood had dried.

“Quinn, I uh,” he looked me in the eyes and disappeared, and I heard him behind me a fraction of a second later, “I wasn’t sure how to tell you.” I squeaked and jumped as I flipped around to face him.

“Holy _ shit!”_ I’d tried my hardest to keep my voice quiet, but there was no doubt in my mind that his parents had heard. I forced myself into a hush. “Shit, shit, sorry.” He matched my volume.

“No, _ I’m _ sorry. I should’ve told you sooner, but I was worried it’d get picked up by the PRT if I texted you. I knew if I even looked at my phone I’d be unable to keep quiet about it, and then I started doubting if I should even tell you at all because you could get hurt or something, and I felt kind of stupid about this whole thing I guess and, uh.. I’m- mm, yeah, you go. Sorry.” His rambling was the only thing that had been stopping me from really freaking out. With the silence of the room, my thoughts were racing.

“No, oh my god, it’s okay. Is it like a Stranger thing? Stranger-Mover? Teleportation? Holy shit, this is really happening.” I felt like I was going to pass out. Rey stepped forward and hugged me to calm me down, and after a few deep breaths he pulled away, keeping a hand on my arm.

“I’m pretty sure it’s like a Mover-Breaker thing. I go into this weird place- I wanna call it blue, but it’s not blue -and everything’s foggy, but also hyper-detailed. It’s kind of overwhelming, honestly. But yeah, I think you were right with teleportation. For me it’s like I’m moving normally, but everything else is stopped. When I come back out of it things start moving again.”

“Holy shit, that’s awesome.” It wasn’t my most elegant work, but it conveyed everything I was feeling well enough. “Do it again, I wanna see if it’s any different when I know what’s up.” I braced myself for the inevitable startle.

“I can’t. I don’t know how it works exactly, but I can’t use it right after the last time. It should be back in a couple minutes, though.” Uncertainty leaked out of his statement, solidifying my understanding of just how little time he’d had to deal with all of this. I’d known, but I hadn’t been able to process the fact.

“Rey,” my eyes lit up as I grabbed his arms, “let’s go test your powers.”

* * *

My Dad wouldn’t be home for hours, so my house seemed like the best option. Rey’s parents just seemed happy that he was well enough to go out and about. On the way over he told me that he felt an awareness of things in his immediate presence when he prepared to enter, and he couldn’t move anything when in there. I had speculations, and with all the blinds closed and equipment gathered, there was nothing left to do but put these thoughts to the test.

“_Superpower _ hypothesis number one,” I grinned stupidly for a moment before composing myself. “The heightened awareness is some form of Thinker power meant to stop you from entering when in a position you could not navigate out of. To test, we will cover you with my blanket.” I held it up and tossed it at him. He took a step back to stop himself from falling onto the ground.

“You don’t have hold back, you know. Or, I guess I mean I’d prefer if you didn’t. Your excitement is the only thing keeping me from thinking about some pretty intense stuff.” He looked uncomfortable, like sharing his feelings was suddenly something he couldn’t do. I hadn’t pressed for details on the event, but his actions at this point had painted a pretty clear picture.

“Got it. That’s good, because this is still blowing my mind.” I put on my ‘soldier’ voice. “Commander, I highly advise that you place that blanket on top of yourself.” I giggled, both from the excitement and from how dumb this was. Rey gave me a soft smile before throwing the sheet into the air and letting it fall over him.

“Great thinking, soldier.” He took a deep breath. “Well, here goes nothing.” Once again his position shifted, though this time he was only slightly to the right. The blanket was on the ground. “Okay, so I seem to be able to bring things in if I’m touching them, and then I can move them.” By the time he finished speaking I was over the mild alarm that had overcome me. Even when I knew it was coming, it still surprised some part of my brain.

“Part Striker then, probably? Interesting.” I held my hand to my face and thought for a little bit before a realization hit me. “What about people?”

“When we were touching earlier I had the same feeling. It’s really weird when it’s happening with something organic. I could _ feel _ your heartbeat, among other things. It was actually really disorienting.” Once again that discomfort loomed over him. I desperately craved to be able to hold him more, to tell him all of this was going to be okay, but I respected his wishes.

“That sounds awfully bizarre, boss. When you’re finished reloading we should see if you can bring me along with you.” If this worked, I wouldn’t have to be left out; we could do this together, rather than having me on the sidelines. _ Please. I need this more than anything else I’ve ever needed _.

“Alright, we can do that, but if it works.. just be careful, okay? It’s hard to put into words just how alien it feels. I don’t want you puking because of me.”

“If it ends up being too much for me, I'll give you a thumbs down. Sound good?” He scrunched up his face and seemed a little less than pleased with that solution, but he nodded.

“Okay, it’s back up. Much faster that time.” He held his hand out to me and I took it. He seemed briefly startled even though he knew what was coming. After a second’s pause, he spoke again. “Alright, uh.. you ready?”

“So ready.” I smiled at him once again. “Three..”

“Two..”

“One-”

* * *

_Echoes. _ Fissures throughout the structure of all things. Rhythmless sketches flooded my perception, painting impossible pictures. Fierce outlines competed for my attention, yet they were all obscured by the lack of any depth in this world. Distinguishing the difference between any two objects was a near impossibility.

_ Relevance. _ A type of home was found here, a foothold that let me grasp a few sparse things. A harshness that could be known and sought out. A distance between one’s self and all other things. A reminder of how fluid that distance could be, how easily one could slip through the barriers.

_ Familiarity. _ A realization that I could understand my senses, and wasn’t sure if there’d actually ever been a time where I couldn’t. A comforting pressure to the land, as if the world itself was giving me a hug. How had I been lost here? I looked upon my best friend and gave him a thumbs up.

“You good?” His voice was crisp, more visceral than any other sound I’d heard before it. The amount of clarity I felt here was unlike anything I’d ever experienced.

“I am beyond good, Rey, this is incredible!” I felt weightless as I strode through the mirror image of my living room, despite the laws of physics observably still applying. I tugged on a couch cushion as hard as I could, but it didn’t budge. “This is ridiculous, I love it.” Rey chuckled and I turned around to see him smiling more genuinely than I’d seen since the morning.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying it. This should make this entire experience less disorienting. You’ve always been really good at making things make sense.”

“I’m glad I can help make this somehow _ more _ incredible for you. God, it’s all so vivid!” The lines of his face contorted a bit.

“What do you mean?”

“Everything’s so sharp, like it’s flowing directly into my brain without any filters.”

“I.. huh. I’m going to pull us out, okay?”

I furrowed my brow and stared at him, but after a moment I nodded.

* * *

The shift back to the real world was more off-putting than any other part of the experience I’d just gone through. It felt less real than the mirror had. I shook my head and cleared things up a bit.

“Okay, so, uh,” Rey’s voice helped a fair bit in easing me back into normalcy. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. When I’m in there, everything’s really foggy. My senses feel dulled. You’re saying yours went the opposite direction?”

“Yeah, it’s.. ultra-high-definition.” I held my hand to my face again and got to thinking. “From what I understand, normally it’d be the opposite, if anything. You’d have my clarity and everyone else would feel your fog. Or we’d both feel one or the other. Right?”

“Yeah, I would’ve thought the same thing. So why do you feel more comfortable in my power than I do?”

“Ugh, damn it.” I kicked the blanket on the floor. “This would be so much easier to figure out if we had other friends!” Once again, Rey chuckled.

“I guess we kinda screwed ourselves on this a bit, huh?”

“God, yeah.” I smiled at him. Out of all the people to be my only friend, he was consistently made me happy it was him. “We should focus on what we _ can _ figure out, though. Let me know when your power’s back, I’ve got an idea.”

“Oh, uh, it came back maybe fifteen seconds or so ago.”

“Good, good. One second.” I searched through my pile of experiment tools and pulled out a stopwatch. I handed it to him. “Go in, count to five, then leave and start the watch. Turn it back off as soon as your power recharges. I’m fairly certain it’d tied to how long you’re in there.”

“Okay.” A fraction of a second later, he shifted just enough that I’d normally have disregarded it as seeing things. He pressed the button and shortly after pressed it again. “Five seconds.”

“Interesting, so it’s a one to one ratio, or close to it. Or maybe it’s exponential? Given our trip together, I think it’s probably my first guess.” Rey looked kind of embarrassed. “What?”

“Ugh, nothing, just..” He evaded looking at me and held his arm in his hand. “I spent like five minutes just watching you the first time, trying to decide if I should sit back on my bed and hope you wouldn’t notice. That’s why it took so long for it to come back up afterwards.”

“Aww, dork.” I gave him a hug. “I’m glad you decided to trust me.”

“I’m glad I’m able to.”

* * *

I stared at the red light of my alarm clock, trying to ignore that I wasn’t alone in my room. 3:17. My thoughts were keeping me up, and they weren’t showing any sign of stopping. My Dad hadn’t said a word to either of us when he’d gotten home, but that was nothing new. As long as we kept quiet, he stayed in his room.

I had almost definitely messed up the exam. _ School counseling can only do so much to ease an average student’s issues, let alone someone like me. _ I knew this, but it still stung a little. With Rey, people’s perceptions of him were founded on stupid societal expectations. In my case, there was something actually wrong with me, and everyone could tell. I couldn’t help but wonder if today wouldn’t have happened to him if we weren’t friends.

The excitement had died down a few hours ago, and that left me with nothing to distract me from my envy. _ I’ve been through hells twice as bad as he has. Why does he get this while I’m just left to suffer? _ I was scared by how much anger I felt towards him. I could only hope that this would be another one of those things that goes away after some sleep. _ It’ll be hard enough to get him to stay as it is, I don’t need to make things worse. _

Even with my anger, I still wanted to help. _ Is my existence even doing anything good for him? Am I adding to the quality of his life, or detracting from it? How am I supposed to help him now that he’s got all of this going on? If he joins the Wards, he’ll have other friends, other people in his life who can do a lot more for him than I can. People who can understand him better. Am I a bad person for wanting him to stay with someone like me? _

3:25. I slowly crawled out of bed and loomed over Rey, confirming he was still asleep. I tiptoed to the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror. I fought back the many cruel things my brain had to say about me, but the barrage was a bit much along with everything else I was dealing with. I splashed some water on my face and sat in the bathtub. The droplets falling on my legs quickly shifted to tears. _ Please don’t make things worse. _

“Quinn?” I jumped back and quickly wiped my eyes with my sleeve. “What in the hell are you doing up?”

“Sorry, Dad, I-”

“I don’t want to hear it. Go the fuck to sleep.” His scowl drilled into me. I nodded and used the wall to stand myself up, shaking. I rushed past him and he pushed me along, making me stumble. “You’re lucky I go in late today.”

I made it to my room and closed the door as quietly as I could in my panic. I leaned against it and took a few deep, shaky breaths, then gazed upon Rey. He was still asleep. I hated him in that moment.

* * *

Nearly two days had passed, and my emotions had thankfully leveled out a bit. The weekend was reaching its end, so we’d have to go back to school tomorrow and act like nothing had happened. We’d have to pretend we hadn’t spent the past couple days experimenting with superpowers, finding the limits.

We managed to come to the conclusion that he was almost definitely a Mover-Breaker-Striker, and that he couldn’t bring objects roughly as large as my bed with him. Beyond that, little else was established other than solidifying things we’d already deduced. The delay between uses was either a perfect 1:1 ratio, or close enough to it that the distinction didn’t matter. His issue with dulled senses and my hyper-clarity remained unchanged, but we hadn’t made any headway into the question of why that may be the case.

It was frustrating to be unable to answer these questions, but it didn’t surprise me. The things I cared about were quite frequently just slightly out of reach, in my experience. After years of dealing with that, one tended to find ways to work around it. The only thing I hadn’t come to terms with was the threat of losing my only friend.

I was laying on top of a blanket on the floor next to his bed. We could both fit on mine, but I wasn’t all too excited about the idea of going back to my house any time soon. I didn’t mind the makeshift mattress, anyways, since I preferred to sleep on a fairly flat surface. I was just about to drift off when Rey spoke to me in a hush.

“You awake?” I was amazed that _ he _ was awake, since he usually passed out at least half an hour before I was able to. I forced myself back to an alert state, then matched his tone.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“I’ve been thinking.” I waited for the continuation, but nothing came.

“Thinking?”

“Yeah, for a few hours now. I mean, since I got beat up, and.. my entire life, on some level, but especially the past few hours.”

“We were just talking an hour ago-” I cut myself off, “right, your power, duh.”

“Yeah, I thought you’d be asleep soon and I didn’t have the words for what I want to say, yet.”

“Well, what do you want to say?” I shifted into a sit and saw that he’d done the same at some point.

“You know how people keep saying I act like a girl? That I’m, like.. gay, or.. whatever?”

“I do.” My voice stilted. _ This is it. “You’re the reason everyone thinks I’m weird.” _

“Can..” He trailed off and visibly struggled to continue. I tensed. “Can you call me Riley?” I blinked, and my anxiety shifted to bewilderment. “When we’re alone, I mean. And.. her and stuff?” The last bit had been near-silent.

“Rey-” Not even a second had gone by and I’d already fucked up. I whispered, “Do you want to be a girl?” His face twitched a little.

“It’s.. a little more complicated than that, but that’s.. guh, it’s already late, we shouldn’t be going into all of that right now, but we can soon. After school, tomorrow. But, um.. in short terms.. yeah. I think so.” We sat in silence for a little while. I’d thought about the possibility a few times, we’d even talked about things in that area a couple times, but I had assumed it wasn’t the case given his- _ her _ reaction to the bullying. I got up and hugged her.

“I’m here for you, Riley.” _ Something only I can help with. _ She held me back and I could feel her shaking as she squeezed me.

“I love you, Quinn.”

“I love you, too."


	2. Cage 1.2

I woke up far more rested than I’d expected, especially when neither Rey nor the alarm clock were what had roused me. The sunlight shone through the window and onto him in the corner, doing something on his laptop. I scrunched up my face and looked at the clock. 10:42. I drowsily looked back to my friend.

“What’s going on, Rey?” He looked at me and tried his best to hide a hurt expression. _ Hurt? _ I turned that around in my mind for a second before I realized my mistake. “Fuck, sorry. What’s going on, _ Riley? _” She had been about to speak, but she seemed to prefer the interruption to me letting the original question stand.

“We’re home sick, I told my Mom I’ve been puking.” She said it matter-of-factly, as if I were stupid for even asking.

“What-? Ugh, Riley, no. You can’t run away from this.” I got out of bed and moved over to sit by her. “Things aren’t going to get better unless we face them, you know? I get that it’s scary, I don’t want you to get hurt again either. But we can’t just..” I trailed off as I realized she wasn’t even paying attention to what I was saying, instead opting to focus on her computer. “Riley, listen to me!” I couldn’t really muster a yell, but it was stern enough to get the point across.

“I’m listening, I’m listening.” She looked me in the eyes. “Really, I promise.” She scooted a bit closer and turned so I could see the screen. There was a crude mouse-drawing made in pink and another in purple. “Look, I just want today to be something special, you know? My first day as Riley. I was thinking we could put together some crappy costumes and go test my powers in the real world.”

“What, like a _ fight _?” I was a bit taken aback, but some part of my brain grew alert at the idea.

“No, god no, just like.. run around and check things out in a space other than one of our parents’ tiny houses.”

“I..” I stopped myself as I was flooded with thoughts. _ “I’m scared one of us will get hurt.” And then she joins the Wards so she can make friends that aren’t wimps, and then she realizes how bad I’ve always been, and she shares her secret with them, and there’s no reason to keep me around at that point so she- _I shook my head and gave her a forced smile. “Sorry, still just waking up. I.. don’t see why not, just this once.” She placed her laptop on the ground and hugged me.

“Thank you, Quinn. We’ll go to school tomorrow, I promise.” I anxiously returned the hug, and I was scared I wouldn’t be able to let go when it ended.

* * *

“Alright, what do you think?” Riley twirled around in the aftermath of half a day’s work, the pink skirt nearly catching on a corner of her desk. She didn’t seem to notice or care. If you ignored the fact that it was almost entirely pink, that the pink mask was made of cardboard, and that the pink hoodie seemed a little tight, it was pretty cute.

“It’s very pink.” I figured I might as well share my mind, now that I’d calmed down a bit from the earlier paranoia. We’d been friends for over a decade; I didn’t need to be so worried. “Not a bad thing, just..”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to end up being hyper girly or whatever. I just figured, you know, this is a temporary costume, so might as well.. experiment!” She beamed unabashedly and did another twirl. It was nice to see her so happy again after how hard the past few days had been.

“Well, you know I’m always down to try new things.” I looked down at my own costume. I’d diverged a bit from the original design, adding bits of black and grey to balance it out. I’d also foregone the skirt in favor of a pair of loose pants. “This _ is _pretty cool.” I strapped on my mask and curtsied at Riley. “At your service, Commander Lady Ma’am.”

“Oh, that reminds me!” She rustled around behind her and pulled out some pieces of paper, then handed them to me. “I thought of some potential names.” The pages were filled with ideas, most of which were garbage. I quickly set to sorting through the less bad ones in my mind before Riley interrupted my train of thought. “What do you think?”

“Uh..” I finished up my mental categorization and set the papers down. “There’s a lot. I’m guessing you remembered to bring this up because of the ‘Lady’?” It had been circled a few times over.

“Yep!” She flashed me a toothy grin. “It’s so simple, and I obviously won’t be using that forever, but again, _ experiments! _I figure there’s no better way to get gendered correctly than to throw as many blaring signs around as I can.”

“It’s certainly giving out some kind of sign, at least.” She didn’t seem to get the implications of my statement, and I was pretty glad about that. We’d talked a bit more about this stuff while making the outfits, but I still had some holes in my knowledge of what was acceptable to say or not.

“And besides, the mask guarantees that there’s no chance of anyone realizing the ‘mysterious pink lady’ was me, a few months down the line. It’s basically foolproof.”

“I.. guess, yeah.” I wasn’t completely convinced by her logic, but if this was what she needed to feel happy, I wasn’t going to stop her. Even in the worst case scenario, this decision wouldn’t matter much. “Oh, what about me?”

“You? Oh, names. Crap, I hadn’t even thought about that.”

“No worries. Hmm..” I recycled some of the better ideas from her list and threw in some of my own. I initially tried to find something that would fit with hers, but once again I wasn’t sure what I could go with that wouldn’t be insensitive. I looked to my costume and settled on a decent, disposable name. “Cheshire.”

“Like the cat?” She cocked her head slightly to the side.

“Yeah. Stripes, purple. It’s good enough for now.” She squinted and looked me over.

“I like it.”

* * *

“Alright, seeya tomorrow.” Riley waved goodbye to her Mom as we set out to what we’d said was going to be my house. It was close enough, and we were old enough, that we could be trusted to make it between the two safely. Our parents didn’t communicate more than a couple of times a year, and when they did it was fairly brief. They were on just good enough terms to be fine with our arrangement.

We anxiously made our way into the city, passing right by the turn that lead to my street. Our backpacks were completely stuffed, and we both seemed to be struggling at least a little bit with the added weight. My excitement carried me through the nervousness and various muscles I knew would be sore in the morning. I couldn’t get a read on what exactly was letting Riley power through.

After walking for a bit through the evening dark, we found a suitably empty alley to enter. She grabbed my hand and I took a deep breath in preparation, then squeezed it.

* * *

_Plunged into the depths._ _Breathing how the fish breathe. Taking everything in. My eyes open._

“You good?” Her voice cut cleanly into my thoughts, unburdened by filters. I stretched my neck and embraced the world as it did the same to me.

“Incredible.” I gave her a thumbs up and started unpacking my costume. She followed my lead.

“I think I’m getting used to this. It’s still weird, but things make a bit more sense. There’s a weird logic to it, you know?” We both turned away from each other and walked to different sides of the alley.

“Yeah, I get that.” I rounded the corner and looked at all the frozen outlines of people. _ She could bring us out in the middle of me changing, if she had reason to. _ The thought chilled me more than the breeze would have if it flowed through here. I went through the process as quickly as I could, and felt like trash as I returned to the alley. _ Paranoid bitch. _

“Wow, we almost look like professionals when you take out the fine details.” She did something that vaguely looked like a wink. “Anyways, what are you thinking for tonight’s plans, _ Cheshire? _You’re my strategy gal.”

“Well, we could roam while staying unpowered and go back in at the first sign of trouble, with the risk of being separated if things get bad. Alternatively, we go around like this with the knowledge that we can’t hop out without getting stranded for however long we decide to stay in. It kind of depends on what you want to do, _ Lady. _” I couldn’t help but smile at the ridiculousness of the situation. “You want to go for a joyride, or are you looking to do some minor heroics? Save a cat from a tree, help an old woman cross the street, that sorta thing.”

“Cats are pretty cute, but I think it’d be best if we just stayed like this. I’m sure in a few months the novelty of saving people will have already been systematically removed by the Wards or whatever, so I might as well take the time to enjoy things as they are right now.” _ You’re telling me. _“Besides, maybe the exposure will help me adjust more.”

“Alright, that works out. It means we can actually be home at a reasonable time. Not like my Dad would even care, but it’ll be nice to get some rest before tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I guess.” She placed her hand on a pipe along the wall. “We can probably climb this, right?”

“Mm, maybe, but I think we could find some place better with little difficulty. Let’s stay grounded for a while and take in the view, then when we find some convenient pile of junk we can use that to get on the roof.” _ Not to mention that I’m no longer in the right mindspace to trust that you won’t cancel your power and let me fall to my death. _

“Oh, yeah, that makes sense. I guess this wouldn’t be much better than climbing an awkward rope.” She started wandering off to her side of the alley before turning back to me. “We should be careful not to lose each other. I’ve got a vague idea of where you are at all times, same with anything I bring in, but things could still get pretty confusing if we get separated.”

“Shit, yeah, I hadn’t even thought about that.” I rushed over to her and grabbed her hand. “For safety.”

“For safety.” She smiled and we headed out from between the brick walls and into a swarm of transparent blue statues. This side was far busier than mine had been, seemingly due to some kind of special event. Even with how well I was handling everything, it was a bit overwhelming. “Fuck.” She held her head with her other hand and took a few long blinks.

“Are you okay? We can go to the other plan if you need to.”

“I’m-” she groaned. “I’m okay.” She pulled back her hand and looked out across the sea of lines, squinting slightly. “I’m okay. It’s something I need to learn to deal with one way or another, and I’m already feeling better.” In any other setting, I could have been able to tell if she was lying about that or not. I trusted her, if for nothing else than because there wasn’t much I could do about it.

“Okay. We can dip out at any time. No judgement.” She nodded and then took a few steps into the maze, pulling me along. We slid between gaps, focusing on the task at hand rather than talking. It gave me time to think. _ Why can I handle her own power better than she can? Her condition is getting better, meaning she won’t be permanently stuck with these issues, but that just makes this situation even more baffling. We need to find a third test subject before too long. _We wandered through the streets for a few minutes before Riley decided to speak up.

“Hey, I just realized something.” She led me to a sidewalk and let go of my hand, turning to face the crowd. “This whole mess is pretty hard to walk through, right? So why don’t we walk _ above _it?”

“That sounds even more difficult.” _ We could also just stick to the side. _She was already fumbling her way onto the tops of heads when I spoke, and after a few missteps she managed to get stable enough to do a victory pose.

“It’s a little awkward, but it’s not like it’s an issue if we fall.” She got on her knees and held her hands out to me. “Come on, it’s fun.” I hesitated, but reasoned that she couldn’t throw me under the bus without tossing herself along with me. I couldn’t deny that it _ was _oddly fun to make a jungle gym out of people. When we were both stood on the lumpy person-floor, I looked around to see if it could be the first part of the route to the roofs.

“There.” I pointed to a fire escape that was just low enough for us to hop onto it from our vantage point, and from there we could ascend and use an open window to reach our goal. “It’ll be a close call, but as you said, we don’t have to worry about falling.”

“Oh, yeah, I wasn’t even thinking about that. Good work.” She began closing the distance, and I followed her steps. She nearly slipped a few times, but it never led to anything serious. I took in her near failures and adapted to consider them, only losing my footing once. I would’ve offered to lead, but I knew she wouldn’t have paid as much attention as I had regardless.

She reached the jump before I did, and wasted no time on making her first attempt. It worked out well for her, and she pulled herself up with a little bit of struggle. She wasn’t exactly what one could call an athlete, but she was closer to that than I was, so I expected I’d need a hand. _ A small test of trust to build up to the massive ones. _

“Alright, uh” - I found a decent position and took a deep breath - “here goes nothing.” I leapt forward and felt my hand slap against the metal, Riley’s hand failing to grab it in time. I braced myself as I fell backwards, my head slamming into the ground and- _ I’m fine. _I pried my eyes back open and saw the outline shaped like my friend peering over the edge. “I’m okay.”

_ Why am I okay? _ Now that I thought about it, I wasn’t sure why I’d agreed so readily with the claim that we didn’t need to be concerned about this exact potentiality. _ Why did she say it like it was established fact, and why did I _ know _ it was? _

“Sorry about that, I thought we were going to count down.” I got to work regaining my progress and neglected a response. _ I can understand her having intuition about her own power, and it’s certainly not abnormal for her to not even realize that it had happened, but why did I accept it like it had already been a truth in my mind? _I crouched in the same spot as last time and cleared my head.

“Three.”

“Two..”

My ‘one’ came out as nothing more than a grunt as I flung myself towards my friend. She caught me this time, and saved me from falling as my other hand failed to connect with the ledge. She pulled me up and we both took a second to breathe. I realized after a few huffs that this was entirely unnecessary, as my body wasn’t tired at all. I straightened myself and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Riley, it’s in our heads.” She took a moment to process what I’d said, then stood herself up with a somewhat bewildered look on her face. “I think the reason we don’t have to worry about falling is the same as why we aren’t tired, or why my hands weren’t at all sweaty even after we’d been holding them for a while. I think we mostly stay the same, physically, as how we were when we entered.” Her eyes went wide.

“Holy shit, I don’t know how I didn’t realize that, you’re totally right.” She took a chunk of her arm and pinched it. “Nothing! That’s really useful.”

“Undeniably, but that could lead to some torturous situations if-” I cringed at my pessimism and turned away from her. “Nevermind, sorry. It doesn’t compare to the advantages, so it’s not worth mentioning.” She tried to grab my hand, but I started the journey up the stairs.

“If I join the Wards, which I’m not even sure if I want to, I’ll keep myself safe. I’m not sure if I’m the kinda person who can do big fights like that, you know? Or if my powers would even be good for that. I’m not even sure if I’m the kinda person who’d be any good at helping anyone at all. I’m..” she paused as we reached the top floor. “I’m going to be okay. I promise.”

“Mm.” I stepped out onto the windowsill, fully aware of the paranoia I’d felt earlier. I moved through the actions only because I didn’t care, in that moment, if she fucked me over. From there, I was able to grapple my way up to the roof. I took in my surroundings and focused on a small group of crows that were eating what appeared to be the last half of a rat.

“Quinn.” I nearly looked away from the birds, but forced myself not to give in to impulse. “I don’t know what’s going to happen in the coming months. I honestly really don’t want to think about that stuff right now, but I’m thinking about it enough to tell you that whatever I end up doing will be with your help. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

I let my head hang and stared at my shoes. I felt like I should’ve been crying, but the tears didn’t come. None of it did. All of the physical signs of how horrible I felt were held back by the rules of the power. I turned around and locked my eyes on her hair, knowing she wouldn’t be able to tell that I was avoiding looking directly at her face.

“We’ll talk about that later. This is our joyride. Let’s have some fun, okay?” The words were more to convince myself than anything else, and they worked well enough. I felt a lot better already, largely thanks to the lack of the usual mess that came from this level of sadness. “Look, I even found some birds.” I jerked my head back a little to guide her eyes.

“Oh!” It thankfully took very little to get her to move on from a rough situation. I was never quite sure if any given case was due to ignorance or a low tolerance for emotional pain, but I had a pretty good guess this time. “Oh fuck, I didn’t even realize how high we are until just now. And look, I’m completely fine about it!” She jumped in place a few times, remaining just next to the edge of the building.

“Hopefully that’ll stick around when you’re out of here, since now you know you can negate any fall on demand.” Regardless of her reasoning for embracing the topic change so rapidly, I let myself follow suit.

“Hell yeah!” She ceased her bouncing and rushed in to hug me. I squeezed her and leaned my head against hers for a brief moment, before she pulled away, smiling at me. “This is incredible.” I couldn’t help but smile back.

“Hell yeah. Want to go running?”

“Absolutely.”

We soon found ourselves leaning slightly over the edge, looking down into the gap between us and the nearest building. It normally would’ve been daunting to even consider crossing it, but there were no concerns anymore. Just the two of us, ready to finally experience the night we’d originally set out to have. Riley backed away, and a moment later she came dashing past me as she leapt over the divide. She cheered for herself, and then as encouragement for me.

I stepped away from the ledge and looked up at my friend. I charged forward and pushed off the ground with as much force as I could muster. _ Crossing the threshold. _I stumbled past her as my feet collided with the surface, the result of underestimating myself and overestimating the distance I had to travel. I managed to find a balance, stopping myself from experiencing a second would-be concussion.

“Whoa, you overshot a bit there. You alright?"

"Don't know my own strength, I guess." I ran forward and hopped over the next gap, then turned to her. "Just had to get used to it." I shouted through the silence, and she flinched.

"Hear you loud and clear." She spoke normally, and her voice was carried perfectly, without any interference.

"Whoops, sorry. Still some things I've got to get used to, I guess."

"Oh, hey, reminder that we need to stay close to each other." She hopped the gap and landed with far more grace than anything I'd done in my entire lifetime.

"I assumed we were past that to some extent, since there's barely anything up here."

"Never hurts to be safe. Side by side as best as we can, okay?"

"Yes ma'am." I smirked, and we spent the next few minutes jumping from building to building. We occasionally used the phone lines or some other impossibly sturdy bridge to cross the larger distances. No consequences, no worries, just the two of us in our secret world. Then I spotted him. A middle-aged businessman, just barely within my range of sight, atop the tallest bridge in the city. He was caught within the first half-second of a fall.

"Fuck. Riley, look." She followed my gaze and I could see her out of the corner of my eye, struggling to see what I was looking at.

"What? What's going on?" The worry in her voice seemed to only exist because of my own.

"There's a guy, I-" I cut myself off, not wanting to cause her to panic unless I was certain what was going on. I steadied myself as best as I could. "I can't tell, but I think we should go check and” - I paused again, choosing my words very carefully - “see what's going on."

She let that be the end of the talk, but she didn't seem as ready to accept that everything was okay as she had been earlier. We made our way over as quickly as we could, which was decently so thanks to our effectively infinite stamina. Every rooftop closer made me more and more certain of my first impression, and Riley was rapidly coming to the same conclusion. _ Looks like we have to be heroes tonight, after all. _

We jumped down from the buildings and walked over cars for the last block, then found a bush to hide our backpacks in. It wouldn’t do to have someone recognizing us for something as stupid as that. With that dealt with, we headed over to the base of the bridge.

We had no choice but to climb the support beam to get to him, but I stayed unmoving while the _ real _ hero made her way up. If we fell into the water, would we be able to find a way back out? Would we even be able to stop this guy’s momentum, or would he take us with him? The power would be down for far longer than it would take for us to die. _ How the fuck did you trick yourself into thinking I’d be better at helping people than you? _

I followed her example, making my way towards our potential death. _ At least I’d die with you. _I caught up to her soon enough, and she didn’t seem to notice how I had hesitated. We finished the rest of the hike up, and used the man to support us in standing up. We positioned ourselves on either side of him, grabbing as much as we could without sacrificing our own balance.

“You ready?” She gave me a hard, terrified look.

“Not in the slightest. Let’s do this.”

* * *

The weight of reality came crashing down on me, and it took everything I had and more to stop us from immediately falling off the edge. That was the easy part, though, as we then had to deal with the shock and panic of a man who’d already felt life to be too much of a struggle to be worth it. After the initial bewilderment passed, he tried his hardest to escape from our grip.

“Let me go you fucking freaks!” His voice was strained, and that added to a natural roughness which made him sound like his vocal cords had been thrown into a blender once a week for years. “I can’t pay you, just let me die!”

“Sir, we’re-” Riley’s foot slipped, forcing her to find a new position before she could continue. “We’re heroes!” A few tense seconds went by before the struggling stopped. He looked at us and presumably noticed our costumes, realizing we weren’t who he’d thought. “Sir, we’re going to sit down, and then we can help you, okay?” Her voice was softer than I’d ever heard it before, even taking into account the changes she’d been trying out all today. The man nodded dejectedly, and we all slowly found our way into a safe sitting position.

“Sorry about that, I..” He held his head in one hand and sighed. “As awful as it is, I wanted to take some of them down along with me. Didn’t think anyone'd stop me other than to kill me themselves, you know?”

“It sounds like you’ve gotten in with some shady people. Would you mind filling us in on the details?” Her speech was awkward, like she was trying to impersonate her own idea of what a female superhero should be. I noticed a small group gathering beneath us, with a couple of people making calls.

“It’s the damned Red Iron. I needed money, my wife’s- my wife _ was _sick. I’d been working this job day and night, but it wasn’t enough. They said they’d cover the rest of the charges if I paid them back in full over time and did a few things for them. I knew it was a bad idea, but..” He paused as he saw the people for himself, swearing under his breath. “Just, long story short, I did their dirty work but couldn’t afford to keep up with the dept. They-” He let go of the beam to cover his face as he collected himself enough to continue. “They killed her, right in front of me.”

Riley and I exchanged glances, and I took in just how out of her depth she was. I gave her a hard look and a nod, letting her pass the torch to me. I took a few moments to allow the man to mourn before I put a hand on the puffy shoulder of his suit.

“Let me introduce myself. I’m Cheshire, and my pink friend is Lady. We’re just passing through here, so we’re not too familiar with the local teams. Regardless, we can get you in touch with the heroes here and they can help sort this out. They’ve probably been looking for an excuse to take the Red Iron down, and.. murder’s a pretty huge incentive.”

“What, you think they don’t know about all that already?” He gave me a hard, tear-stained look, then sighed. “Fuck, you really are just a couple of kids, huh? You don’t even know how bad this all is. You don’t..” He sighed again. “You don’t deserve to have to pick some washed up nobody off the ground.”

“Well, to be fair, we’re actually really far from the ground.” It was a bit of a risky play, but I figured he was calmed down enough that the worst case scenario would be for him to feel a bit less grateful of our rescue when this was all over. In the best of cases, the humor would help speed this process up. A down-to-earth followup would be what took it from a cruel jab to a lighthearted reassurance. “Maybe we could head down and figure something out once we have a bit more privacy?”

He squinted at me contemplatively, and I was hit with the realization of the possibility that someone could recognize us if this got on the news. Riley was almost definitely safe, given that nobody knew her as a girl but me. My costume was nothing like my usual clothing, but it would still be far easier to pick out identifying details. _ Focus on somebody other than yourself for five fucking seconds. Nobody’s going to know it’s you. _

“I guess there’s not any chance I’d hit the water, now, anyways.” I realized he was actually looking behind me. A few seconds later, a green-suited cape I recognized flew to my side. My heart skipped a beat. I shifted my head slightly in his direction, just so I could get a better view.

“I take it you’re the one these calls have been about?” Radar spoke and the businessman tensed, then mumbled affirmatively. “And you two?” He was speaking to Riley, but she looked even more stunned than I was. I took a deep breath and cleared my head.

“I’m Cheshire, and this is Lady, we-” I felt a tingling wave pass through me, and held back a shudder. I hadn’t expected to actually _ feel _ it when he started using his truth sense. Anger bubbled up at the fact that a childhood idol had less than seven words worth of faith in me, despite the fact that I’d just saved a man’s life. I set out with a new conviction to twist my words as best as I could while not setting him off, to spite someone I had and still _ did _find inspiring. “We’re newer capes, heroes. We were out patrolling the city when we came across this man in the midst of a suicide attempt. We managed to stop him, and were handling the followup very well, but then you showed up and slowed things down a bit.”

“Mm.” He stared into me, and I nearly broke, but I stayed strong on the knowledge that he didn’t use his eyes to see. Even with that information, it was daunting. “I’ve never heard of you because you’re from out of town, then?” He was trying to exploit psychology, to get me to either correct his falsehood or stick to a lie he didn’t know I’d made, all so he could unravel this whole thing. He was using _ interrogation tactics _on me. I was better than that.

“We’re _ very _new. We decided to get some practice testing out Lady’s powers in a more open field.”

“Shift.” Riley interrupted me, then got embarrassed, shrinking into herself as we all looked over at her. “Lady was an experiment. I’m Shift.”

“_ Shift’s _powers.” I took back control of the conversation to save her from as much anxiety as I could. “We ran into this man and knew we had to do something to help.” I paused for a moment to read the reaction, then pressed on. “We have intentions to join the Wards, but we wanted to sort things out first. Better to apply once everything is fully understood, right?”

Radar’s wave powered down, and I exhaled a breath I didn’t realize had been caught in my chest. He handed both of us cards with the Wards logo on it, along with a phone number and a few other pieces of information.

“Right. You should head home, it’s late. I’ll handle this, and when you’re ready to be real heroes, call that number. They’ll get you equipment that’ll offer you a good amount of protection. I’ll vouch for you under whatever name you apply with, just tell them I sent you. You two seem like good kids.” He held his hand out to the businessman, who seemed displeased with the fact that we’d turned this into a superhero talk, but he grabbed it anyways. “Do either of you need any help getting down?”

It was a choice between awkwardly sliding down the beam, or being the stupid kids who need the grown up to carry us. Either way, it’d be in front of a dozen people.

“We’re fine.” I began my ride down, deciding to keep at least _ some _of my pride. Riley followed after me, still looking a little dazed from the events. We made it to the ground a short while after the other two, and the crowd was thankfully more focused on them than us. I walked as quickly as I could away from the scene to retrieve our backpacks, then entered a nearby alley. I leaned against a wall and clumsily dropped into a sit on the cold ground.

“Fuck.” Riley sat beside me, out of breath.

“Fuck.”

* * *

It took a while, but we eventually found somewhere to change back into our civilian clothing. We took the bus the rest of the way home, but it was still far too late by the time we made it to the welcome mat. We wouldn’t be getting much sleep.

Riley held her hands to myself and door, used her power, and we walked through as quickly as we could. We hopped back out, waited, and then went back in to go to my door. Another wait, another usage, and we were in my room without a sound having been made. Perhaps it was overkill, but neither of us wanted to risk waking my Dad up. We slipped into bed and stared at the ceiling in silence for a while. When she finally did speak up, it was in a hush that reminded me of our last night here. We actually did have intimate secrets to discuss, this time around.

“I couldn’t have saved that guy without you.” Before I could respond, she continued on. “I don’t know what to do, if I should call in or not. I’m not made for this kinda thing. That shit before, I.. you saw, he would’ve jumped if I was the only one there. I don’t know if I could do any of that stuff without you, Quinn. I don’t think we’d be able to trick them into believing you have powers for much more than a day, if even that, or I’d be begging you to plan that out.”

“I’m not the only smart person in the world, Riley. You’d be put into a team with a far better understanding of _ all _ of this stuff than I can give you. Thinkers far more capable of everything I have to offer. I’m..” _ I’m holding you back. _

“You’re my friend. You’re the only person in the entire world who likes me, who I can trust. They may be the good guys, but are they _ good? _ Would they hate me, too? If it’s just us, we don’t have to worry about any of that. We could just be okay. For the first time, we could _ not _ have to deal with all this awful shit, we could just be fine. Don’t you want that?” _ Unbearably so. _

“No. I.. if you could be helping people, meeting new people who love you because they _ know _what you’re going through.. I can’t take that from you. It’ll be someone else calling the shots on the field, but I’ll still be here to give you advice no matter what. Please don’t make me the reason you limit yourself.”

“I’ll think about it. I.. I hated how it felt. Radar’s power. I know I’m not a genius, but it made me feel like an idiot. I felt like I couldn’t say anything, and then when I did, I just felt awful about it. I don’t want to be around things like that and worse all the time, let alone be fighting the literal monsters behind the powers.”

“I honestly just can’t believe he did that to us after all we’d done to help. I feel like I must have missed something, because he was going all out. Did he think we were villains?” _ Shut up, support her. _“But, um. Your power should be able to cancel out a lot of the worst ones. Even something like he has, you could just warp out under normal circumstances. You’ve got a get out of jail free card for all kinds of shit, you.. you don’t have to worry about that stuff as much as most people. It’ll be okay.”

“I don’t know.” I had next to no idea if what I was saying was true, and she knew it. I could only hope the lie could be something to help her get through the night.

“It’s been a hard past couple hours, and we’ve got a long day ahead of us. We should sleep. Things will feel less awful afterwards.” I rolled onto my side and wrapped my arm around her, pulling myself a little closer. “I’m here for you, I promise.”

We opted for silence instead of saying goodnight.

* * *

We woke up and went through our morning routine, too tired and defeated to do any of our usual antics. I considered asking her to let us use the power to get some extra sleep before I remembered that we’d get nothing out of it, if we could even manage to drift off at all. I also thought of using the power to get to school early, and then relaxing for a bit before the bell rang, but that seemed like a lot of trouble for little more payout than just riding the bus.

Riley seemed more out of it than me, so I held her hand for support and noticed she was shaking. I looked around to make sure nobody was paying too much attention to us, then squeezed, bracing for the shift. It didn’t come. _ Talk to me. I can’t help you if you don’t trust me. _I leaned on her to add another physical reminder that I was there for her. It was up to her where we went from there, and she didn’t end up making a move.

We got off the bus and started the short walk to school. I let go of her hand as we got closer, not wanting to burden her by adding to people’s claims that we were dating. I felt a twang of _ something _at the thought and made a mental note to think about that later. She stopped when we were a block away, and I did the same a step later. I turned to find her letting her head hang.

“Hey, what’s up?” I tilted my head forward a bit to try to get a better look.

“I can’t.” She spoke with a downtrodden tone, similar to the moments leading up to when she told me she’d had a trigger event.

“No, hey, Riley..” I kept my voice low to be certain nobody could hear us, even though there wasn’t anyone particularly near. “We’ll be together for more than half the day. What if when I’m not around you go talk with David? I’m sure he’d be understanding, and maybe he could show you how good things are looking. Okay?”

“No.”

“Riley, please. You’re stronger than this.” I put my hand on her arm and rubbed it with my thumb. _ People will judge us anyways, I’m not going to let them control how I help you. _

“I’m not. Or, I don’t know, maybe I am. But Reynold isn’t. And for eight hours straight, that’s who I have to be.” She squirmed out of my grip and took a step away from me. “Go without me. If you don’t want to be the reason I hold myself back, don’t let me be that for you.”

“I..” _Possibilities._ _“I don’t get anything out of school anyways, it’s below me.” “If you go now, what if you don’t come back?” “I don’t matter as much as you do.” “If you stop going to school, you’re letting them win.” “I need you, Riley.” _I said nothing. After a bout of eye contact that I couldn’t focus on due to the flood of things I was too weak to say, she left. I turned around and walked the rest of the way to school, a few minutes late for first period.

* * *

I walked into the classroom and handed my tardy slip to Ms. Holly, then took a seat in the back, next to Vincent. He was the closest thing I had to a second friend, and I wanted to try to build more connections with the impending threat of losing my strongest one. I hadn’t been so close to the windows in years, usually preferring to sit right next to the door so I could be the first to leave.

A few minutes after class had resumed, Vincent dropped a crumpled piece of paper onto my lap, contrasting with the grey skirt. I acted as nonchalantly as I could as I picked it up and quietly opened it.

_ ‘where’s your boyfriend?’ _

I blinked and glanced over at him, then back to the note. _ My way in. _I grabbed my pencil and sloppily scribbled my response onto the page, all while keeping up the appearance that I was focused on the lesson.

_ ‘Sick. Not my boyfriend.’ _

I tossed it back over to him, and we continued the exchange back and forth for a while.

_ ‘my bad, people say a lot about you two’ _

_ ‘I’m aware. They do the same with you.’ _

_ ‘you get used to it’ _

_ ‘Yeah. I assume you don’t actually keep bats in your mouth?’ _

_ ‘people make fun of any trace of an accent, so I just stay quiet’ _

_ ‘You can learn a lot when you’re not focused on your own words.’ _

_ ‘yeah’ _

We were making some progress, but not enough to outweigh the risk of Ms. Holly spotting us. I wasn’t really sure where to go from there, anyways, and the paper was already a bit of a mess. Maybe we could talk more at lunch, or I could get his number and we could text after school at some point. Or- _ This is pointless. He’s just tolerating me because I’m the only person who’s willing to be near him at all. We wouldn’t get along. Nobody’s ever going to like me but Riley. _

I stared out the window, in the direction of where she’d left. _ Even if I could make new friends, that’s not going to fix the issue. I need _ her. _ I shouldn’t be wasting my time on figuring out how to get on without her, when I could be figuring out how to be of use to her. I need something that lets me compete with superpowers. Or for all of the shit I’ve been through to count for something. I deserve something. I deserve powers. I must be right on the brink of a trigger event, hovering just beneath the actual breaking point. I need some way to push it over the edge. _

_ I need to piss off my Dad. _


	3. Cage 1.3 R

_ Waves upon waves of information, crashing into me. Permanently high tide. _

I sat on a swing that was as still as I wanted to be. I’d spent at least an hour thinking about it, and yet I’d only just left Quinn to take on school by herself a few minutes prior. _ I wish she could just join the Wards with me. There would be no question in my mind about it if she had powers of her own. We’re such a good team, but they aren’t going to see that. _ I got up from my seat and walked around the park. _ Moving around should help me adjust faster. If nothing else, I can’t be a hero before I’m acclimated to my own abilities. _

I looked at a woman and the baby in her stroller. _ “You could be meeting new people who love you because they know what you’re going through.” _ I couldn’t tell if she was being painfully naive because she wasn’t used to facing something she didn’t understand, or if I was underestimating how smart she was. _ I’ve been wrong most of the times I’ve doubted her, but this certainly looks like a time where I’d be right. The overlap between capes and trans people has got to be ridiculously small. _

I passed a water fountain, turned off for the cooling season. _ It never ends. Even in a group of freaks, I’d be the one nobody likes. I don’t really even care, but it makes being a team player that much harder to imagine. _ I sat on a bench and crossed my legs as best as I could. I’d considered the possibility of tricking them into thinking I was cis, but that would range from incredibly difficult to impossible, depending on how open they were about their civilian identities. Not to mention that most thinkers could probably see right through it. _ I’m not really interested in adding another layer to the masquerade I live every day, anyways. _

_ Whatever. I should get out of here, in case I end up needing my power later. _I stood back up and looked around for a place where nobody would see me. Beyond that, a place where nobody would be wondering how I’d gotten there without them noticing. Throw in possible cameras, and things could get messy very quickly. I found a suitable spot behind a trash can-

* * *

-and exited, feeling the pressure from all angles lower to a comfortable level. I left my cover and came back into the moving world. _ Home, to some extent. _ I wandered around some more, eventually coming across a cafe. I could go for a drink, so I headed inside.

Soft colors and a predominantly wooden interior made the whole place feel cozy. I waited in line for a little while, then ordered a scone and a small mocha and found a table to sit at. I surveyed my surroundings as I ate, and realized how much harder it was to inspect people who were moving and can take issue with your staring.

One of them caught my attention more than the rest, a girl with wavy red hair waiting in line with a friend. Her top, whatever kind it was, was a shade of blue just slightly lighter than my own, with longer sleeves. Her pants were- _ okay, no, don’t look there. _ She resembled me just enough that I could imagine myself in her place, and it stung. I finished my scone and left with the coffee, heading in the general direction of the mall.

_ All of my issues in life exist because I’m like this. I could handle everything else, every single thing in my life that isn’t a direct result of me being a fucking freak. I don’t even need friends, I’m fine with what I have, but I need to be able to live my life without having to worry about people wanting me dead. Especially if I’m going to be a cape, up against monsters who could make me suffer fates _ worse _ than death, and might, because of one thing that I shouldn’t have to be dealing with. _

My mood worsened as time passed, and I found myself wishing I’d just gone to school. _ At least then I’d have a distraction. _ It was too late to go now, no matter how badly I wanted to. I entered the mall, the warm air forcing its way past me as it tried to find equilibrium. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting to get out of coming here, I just knew that I wanted to.

I wandered around, taking in the flood of artificial smells. I would’ve gotten a pretzel if I hadn’t just eaten a scone on top of the breakfast Quinn made for us. _ Maybe I should learn how to cook. I wonder if I could make a decent meal while using my power, given how everything works. “Shift’s Super Fast Food: You get your order in five seconds or less!” Probably not. Dumb idea. _

I stopped in my tracks as I realized I was walking past several women’s clothing stores. I felt embarrassed, almost sick, at the thought of going into one of them; like I was an invader, a pervert, disgusting for even considering the possibility. I felt _ bad _ in every sense of the word. I threw those thoughts away and anxiously dashed into the shop, avoiding eye contact with anyone and everyone.

I was almost shocked to find that I was actually in the store, standing between the bundles of hangers. I could trace back every step leading here, yet I couldn’t believe that I’d really just done it _ Maybe I really can face my fears. _ Despite that reassurance, I was still horrified as I reached out and touched a blue dress.

“Sir?” I jumped at the voice, pulling my hand back as I turned to face the worker. Her name tag read ‘Steph’. She gave me a look of concern, tilting her head slightly to the side. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”

“No, um..” I lowered my head and loosened as much tension as I could. _ Reynold Green. Play the role. _ “I’m getting a gift for my friend, but I don’t know how all of this stuff works.” She straightened her back a little bit and gave me a friendly smile.

“Can I assist you in finding the perfect gift?” _ She’s good at this. Probably been in retail for longer than anyone should ever have to. _ I slowly nodded. “Great! Do you know your friend’s measurements?”

“Uh.. No, but she’s pretty similar to me.”

“Alright, would you be interested in finding out your measurements and then going from there? If you’d rather, I can ask some questions about your friend and we can find an approximate size based on that.”

“Let’s do the first one. I want this to be good.”

“Okay, follow me.” She headed over to the front counter, and I trailed behind. A woman a couple aisles down gave me a weird look as I passed. I avoided seeing if the people outside of the store were paying attention to me. Steph reached down for a moment and came back up with a measuring tape, then led me to a changing room. “Hold your hands out to the side.” I did so, and she began the process.

It felt nice to some extent. I could pretend for a few moments that I was just a normal girl. I was able to mostly ignore my brain screaming at me that I was horrible, and that which did pass through was easy enough to overwhelm with all of the positive parts of the situation. _ I’m Riley Green, and I’m a girl. _

“Okay, all done.” I put my hands down and she started writing down on a small pad of paper. “How close do you mean when you say similar? If you tell me how she compares to you, I can account for the differences.”

“Uh..” _ Shit. _ “Very similar. Um.” _ Shit shit. _ “We’re the same height, and um.. general shape. And..” I grasped for something, _ anything _ . She could see I was struggling, and was about to speak before- “She likes to sew. So, uh, it’s not a huge deal if it’s a little off in some parts.” She looked confused as to why I was acting so weirdly, but moved on. _ Probably wrote it off as me still being weird about shopping for a dress. She’s not entirely wrong, even if she doesn’t know why that’s the case. _

“Okay, well-” She paused for a second, and I could only assume it was to find how to word her next statement without freaking out who she thought to be an incredibly embarrassed boy. “Can you tell me roughly what her bust size is?” I swallowed, resisting the urge to look down at myself.

“Um.” _ I can stuff it later, or something. _ “Kind of small, I guess? That feels mean to say, but, um..” I didn’t continue.

“Alright.” She gave me a slightly exaggerated nod and headed towards one of the aisles. I followed, even before she gestured for me to. “It’s very nice that you’re doing this for your friend, not many guys are brave enough. I’m sure she’ll appreciate it, even if it’s not a perfect fit.” She began combing through some options. “I saw you looking at that blue one earlier. Does she wear blue a lot?”

“Yeah, mostly. We grew up together, so we kinda um..” _ Fuck, I’m awful at this. _ “We kinda influenced each other’s favorite colors and stuff.”

“Oh, cute.” It seemed genuine, even with the knowledge that her whole demeanor was meant to feel that way. “Here, how are these styles?” She pulled a few out, holding them up individually to give me a good view of each. One of them was frilly and had a strap that wrapped around the waist. _ I guess you’d call that a belt? _

“That one’s perfect.”

“This one?” She held it apart from the others. I nodded, and she put the others back. “Your friend has good taste.” We headed back to the counter. “Are you getting this early for the holidays, or does she have a birthday coming up?”

“Birthday.”

“Do you want it in a gift bag? It comes with a note that you can fill out whenever.”

“Yes, please.” _ Less likely to get harassed if people think it’s very clear this isn’t for me. _

“Receipt?”

“No thanks.”

“Alright.” She handed me the bag. “I can grab you a pen if you want to write something now.”

“Oh. Yeah, that’d be nice. Thank you.” I was so focused on the empty note that I missed her response as she handed me the pen. I let the tip hover slightly above the blank slate. A gift to myself. I let the ink flow alongside my words.

_ ‘To: Riley _

_ From: Reynold _

_ You’ve grown a lot since last year. I never thought I’d see you make it this far. Keep being yourself, no matter what anyone says. You deserve that and more. Thank you for being a part of my life. We’ve got a long road ahead of us.’ _

* * *

Something I thought was probably silk draped off my arms, and a thin band tightly wrapped its way around my waist. Flares of cloth surrounded my body, consuming me._ Feels delicate. It’s a miracle nothing tore while I was putting it on. _ I turned to look at my back in the mirror. _ Is this even on right? _ Maybe not, but it was close enough for now. _ Quinn can help fix any mistakes. _ As if she had super-timing, my phone buzzed right that moment.

_ ‘Hey, R (safe to use here?). Vincent and I are sort of friends, now. Did you know that his last name is Bugayong? Boo-gay- and then ong like song. He’s half Filipino, I guess. Anyways, we’re going to be hanging out for a little while, and then I have to do homework. Tonight’s gonna be an alone night, my Dad’s not too happy about how many sleepovers we’ve been having lately. Love you, hope you’re doing okay.’ _

She was lying. Her Dad never cared about anything involving us, let alone something stupid like that. I reread the message a few times, trying to see if I’d missed something. _ Why doesn’t she want to be around me? Is she mad because of this morning? _ I had to send something back.

_ ‘rileys ok. im ok. have fun with vincent. be safe’ _

I was never one for writing what amounted to tiny letters back and forth with her, but even this was a fair bit shorter than my usual replies. _ She’s never told me such a blatantly obvious lie. Does she not even care enough to at least come up with something more convincing? What does she want me to do? _

I looked back to the mirror and was met with my own blank expression staring back at me. _ Have I really gotten so accustomed to hiding how I feel? Even when I’m alone? _ I squinted at myself for a few moments, and my mouth twitched a little bit in response. I fell backwards onto my bed and sighed until I ran out of breath. _ What a shit day. _

I stared at the ceiling, light pouring through the window and onto my forehead, just above my eyes. _ Am I just selfish? Why can’t I just go to school and be a good friend to Quinn? It’s not reasonable for me to expect her to bend to all my needs. But without her being with me for the next few days, I don’t know how I’m going to be able to come back. And it will get worse with every day, because people will make a bigger and bigger deal out of it. As if I’m not aware of the fact that I’m a fucking loser who can’t handle the world. As if I don’t know that I’m going to spend days wallowing in my own stupid bullshit while the world moves on without me. _

My right hand had found its way to the card Radar had given me, and my left was holding my phone. Each number displayed on the screen, one by one. All I had to do was call, and my entire life would change forever. I breathed in, held it, and pressed the button as I exhaled. As the ringing started, anxieties bombarded me. I wanted to run away, to forget I’d even considered doing this. All of that went away when the man on the other end spoke. _ Some sort of power, or just a soothing voice? Would it even be legal to use that kind of power here? _

“Hey, this is the Wards Recruitment Center. How can I help you?” I pulled the phone away for a brief moment to clear my throat, then put on the best androgynous voice I could manage.

“Uh, hi, I’m looking to talk with someone about exploring the future of..” _ Shit, should I have gotten a disposable phone? _ “Uh, of my cape life. I don’t really know what I want to do yet, and I guess I’d like to get some more information, if that’s a thing that happens. I don’t know how this works.”

“Okay, would you like me to get you in contact with a representative? I can schedule you a phone or in-person appointment for as soon as six tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, please. In person.” _ I’ll have to do this at some point; might as well rip off the band-aid while it’s still just one person. _ There was a short moment of silence before I realized I’d forgotten to say more. “Ah, uh, tomorrow morning at eight should work.”

“Alrighty, that’s open. Are you going to come on in or do you have an alternative location in mind?” I thought for a moment before giving him the name of the park I’d visited earlier that day. “We can’t have costumed meetups in public, for obvious reasons. We also can’t have uncostumed heroes revealing their identity to an unknown subject such as yourself, so you’ll have to settle for an unpowered representative. Does that work for you?”

“Yeah, that’s okay.” _ Better, really. My costume is kinda shit, and there’s less pressure if I’m not making first impressions on a potential future teammate. _

“Sounds good. Anything else I can help you with?”

“No, thank you.” I hung up and immediately regretted it. _ You couldn’t wait five seconds for a response? _ I began taking off my dress, avoiding looking at the mirror. _ What an asshole. He’s probably going to tell whoever you’re meeting tomorrow that you’re a dick. _I stuffed the bundle of blue cloth into my closet and slid into bed. I stared at the clock on my wall, and seeing just how little time had passed made me feel even more drained than the day already had. I watched the seconds pass away for half an hour before sleep overcame me.

* * *

I woke up to a soft ring, and quickly scrambled around until I found its source. I took one look at the name displayed on my phone and flipped it open.

“Quinn?” My voice came out hoarse, and it made me painfully aware of just how dry my mouth was.

“Riley, I’m-” She coughed loudly and moved to muffle it. “Fuck. I’m at the phonebooth by my house. Help.” She hung up and I took a second to groggily process what she’d said. _ Shit, I slept for eleven hours. _I got my things and put my hand on one of my windows.

* * *

_ Knowledge- oh fuck off. _ I ignored the barrage of input and crawled through the window. _ What did she do this time? _ I began my journey and tried to wake up, but belated realized the fog wouldn’t leave until I deactivated my power. _ At least I’m not completely dead. All the extra sleep is probably saving my ass right now. “What incredible forethought! Is that another power of yours?” they’ll ask me. “Nope, I’m just a human wreck.” The crowd goes wild. _

I briefly considered the implications of this with regards to a drug trip. _ This is kind of similar to that, in a way. Probably, at least. Maybe I could get money as a Rogue giving people extended highs. _ I let the thoughts drift off as I shuffled across the gravel and around the corner. There she was, sitting on the floor of the phonebooth. I couldn’t make out exactly how, but I could tell from the awful mess of blue lines around her waist that she was injured. Probably crying, but I couldn’t be sure. _ Damn it, Quinn, what did you do? _

* * *

“Quinn.” I put my hand on the glass, but she cried rather than respond to me. “Quinn, what happened?” She continued to ignore me, so I pulled the door open and crouched down next to her. She shifted her head away from me for a fraction of a second, but then turned back and hugged me with enough force that I stumbled backwards. I recovered quickly enough and hugged her back, careful not to press on the sensitive area of her torso.

“Riley, I’m sorry.” Her words came out between choked sobs, and her shaking didn’t help. “Vincent’s not- I lied about the hanging out shit. I need you. I wanted- ugh, I’m so dumb.” She laughed under her breath, uncomfortably. “I made him mad. Said he was just as bad as Mom with his drinking and- fuck, just..” She pulled away from the hug and slowly brought up her shirt, revealing a gash surrounded by bruises.

“Shit, I would’ve brought some bandages if I’d known.” I looked uselessly at my clothes, knowing that none of it would be clean enough to be a good replacement. It didn’t look bad enough to need immediate treatment. “I can’t warp us yet.” She nodded and hugged me again.

“I’m sorry.” We sat there for a minute, the cold biting into me. It helped break the fog in my mind to some extent, but I still could hardly think. 

“It’s okay.” I moved away and stood up, holding my hand out to her. “We should get you home to clean you up.” She furrowed her brow at me for a second, but conceded and let me pull her up. We started the walk home and she rested her arm on me for support. I wanted to ask her questions, but I knew I should wait for her to initiate the conversation. We were halfway to my house when she finally spoke up.

“I thought I could cheat the system. I banked on that and got fucked over.” She was speaking barely above a whisper, paying respect to the stillness of the night. “It wasn’t bad enough, or the whole thing’s just bullshit. I’m certain the PRT’s hiding some shit, but what am I supposed to do about it? Throw darts at outlandish theories and hope I don’t get killed? Since you got your powers how you did, I thought this was my best shot, but nope. All of this was for nothing.”

“Quinn..”

“No, I don’t know, I don’t like- it’s stupid.” She kicked a pebble a few feet ahead of us. “This isn’t your fault. I know you’re thinking that but it’s not true.”_ I wish I was awake enough to be thinking anything at all. _ “I just want powers, and I think I deserve them for all the shit I’ve been through. But I guess I don’t.”

“Maybe it’s just like..” _ Wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up god damn it help your friend it’s been ten minutes you useless bastard. _ “It’s probably just not the right kind of event, or something.” _ You’re just encouraging her to try something else. _ “Or it needs to be like.. I don’t know, maybe it’s like a fate thing or whatever.” _ Neither of you believe in fate, dumbass. _ “Or a like.. I don’t know, maybe yours is supposed to be like.. a happy trigger, or something. Just because mine was how it was doesn’t mean yours has to be, going off of the theory you’re working with. You’ve been through a lot worse, so it’s probably not going to come from that.”

“Maybe.” _ It probably is my fault. Maybe if I wasn’t skipping school and leaving her all alone to deal with all this shit, she wouldn’t have done this. Or something. God damn it, I know half of my time was in my power, but there’s no way it should be taking this long for me to wake up. Maybe my power made it worse? Fuck, more testing I have to do. _

_ Why couldn’t _ she _ have gotten the powers instead? I’m not made for this kind of thing. She’s smarter than me, she’d absolutely love doing all of this testing stuff. She loves doing it with me, I bet it’d be even more enjoyable if she was finding out the rules of her _ own _ powers. And she needs friends more than me. That sounds mean, but it’s true. It says a lot more about me, anyways. _

_ I’m broken. She’d say the same about herself, I’m sure, but at least she has a reason. If she had friends she’d be better, but I’m just permanently fucked. Here I am talking to myself, too, as if this wasn’t fucked up enough already. Or thinking to myself, if that’s any better. Whatever, at least this has woken me up a bit. _

My power was back by the time we got to my bedroom window, so I used it to ensure that there was no noise when we opened it. _ Been doing this a lot lately, haven’t we? _ Once we were safely inside, I gestured for her to take off her shirt, and retrieved the first aid kit from the bathroom as quietly as I could. I returned and got to work on Quinn. _ Hey, at least some of my Dad’s nursing experience rubbed off on me. That’s something I’ve got going for me, I guess. _

“This feels shitty.” I looked up from the wound for a second to read her expression, but she wasn’t giving me much to work with. “Like I’m trying to get in on something I’m not supposed to have for some reason. It feels like I’m an invader, and a really bad one at that.”

“Believe me, I know how that feels. I’d give you advice on how to deal with that, but I don’t really have any. I don’t think you’re bad for wanting this. You’ve always wanted it, more than me. You don’t need to start feeling weird about it now.”

“But maybe I should’ve been feeling bad this whole time, Riley. There’s a lot of capes who have these really fucked up powers, and probably a decent chunk of them had really awful trigger events. But we imagined life with them, nonetheless. I mean, fuck, we didn’t know, but we _ should _ have known. Even after your trigger, though, I went and actively sought it out. Maybe you don’t have the perspective to see it yet, but I’m sure a lot of people would find that offensive.” I finished applying the bandage and turned off the lamp by my bed. I thought of a response while we silently worked on finding a way to lie down that didn’t cause her pain.

“It’s a little fucked up, but I don’t think it’s offensive. Everything’s built around this to some extent, you know? We hear about new capes all the time, there’s always something on the news. Who could blame you for wanting a piece of that? So when you see an opportunity, it just makes sense that you’d give it a shot. It didn’t work, and that sucks, but I mean.. are you going to keep trying to force it? You can’t keep chasing this forever, you know? I didn’t get my powers because I went looking for them, they just kinda happened. I think if you can even _ have _ a trigger, it’ll probably only come when you’re not seeking it out.”

“Mm.” _ Shit, why did I have to suggest that she might not be able to get powers? Fuck, and how am I supposed to get back to sleep now? I really should’ve set an alarm earlier or something, this is really- _“You might be right about that. Maybe I just need to let it happen naturally. Regardless of which theory you listen to, it seems like the best shot at it actually working would be that. Sucks, though.”

“Yeah. But hey, there’s more to life than powers. In the meantime, why don’t we just work on generally improving your life. You’ve had to deal with a lot of shit, and I haven’t really been doing the best job of easing your worries. Especially lately.”

“Hard to fix any of my real issues. I wish your parents could adopt me or something.” She exhaled heavily, and I could barely make out a slight whimper at the end of it. “At least I get to move out in a couple years.”

“Just because you can’t get rid of the pile of rocks, doesn’t mean you can’t throw a couple more pillows over them. I want to help make things better for you, in some way. You’ve fought for the same for me, and I haven’t been returning that effort.” I moved my hand around until it found hers. “We’re gonna get through this together, okay?”

“Okay. Thank you, Riley.” I hummed in acknowledgement and focused on how the sparks of my power danced around her. They quieted down as she drifted to sleep, and I listened to the sounds of the night for hours. Eventually, I grew tired enough to join her.

* * *

I’d woken up a few times throughout the night, and by the time the alarm rang at 7:30, I had slept for about sixteen hours in the past day. Despite this, I didn’t feel particularly well-rested. Quinn awoke a few seconds after me, and her tiredness very visibly dwarfed mine. I got up and turned on the light, then got to deciding what to wear and bring to the appointment. Quinn went through her usual morning routine, being sure to avoid aggravating the wound. I watched her for a short while as she picked an outfit from the small collection of clothes she’d left over here. It took her a little bit to notice, and she avoided acknowledging it for a bit, but she eventually caved.

“What’s up?” Her tone served to contrast the hard look she was giving me. If I didn’t know her that well, I’d have read it as accusatory. It hurt knowing that it actually would be in a few moments.

“Sorry, nothing, just a little out of it.” _ No, you idiot! Now she’s going to think you’re lying when you actually tell her. How can you claim to care about being her friend when you so clearly aren’t willing to put in the effort? _ I shifted uncomfortably and looked away.

“You’re not going to school today, are you?” Dejection rang through her words and pained me. _ It’s not like you can hide this shit from her, anyways. Fess up. _

“I might come in late.” _ Asshole. _ “I have an appointment today with a uh..” _ Get it over with. _ “With a recruitment representative.” Quinn’s expression shifted to one of solemn acceptance. “I don’t know how long it’ll last, but if it ends before lunch I’ll see about coming in late. Promise.”

“Okay.” She left the room with her clothes and went into the bathroom. I changed as quickly as I could and gave a glance at the clock. _ I’ve still got twenty minutes, so I shouldn’t have to use my power to make it in time. Worst case scenario, I have to spend a few minutes stalling before I can show off to the representative. _ I couldn’t really formulate why, but I used my power to make sure Quinn wouldn’t hear me leaving.

* * *

I’d had more time than I expected, so I got myself a cup of coffee that was a little too hot before I went to the swings. The entire rest of the world was a fair bit too cold, so I didn’t mind the heat too much. The most androgynous look I could come up with from what I had available was a hoodie and jeans, so I was wearing that.

I looked around at the various people in the park as discreetly as I could. Someone eventually approached me, and she was not what I’d been expecting. She looked at most a couple years older than me, and had a surprisingly casual demeanor. Her hair was up in a messy ponytail, and she was carrying some kind of sleek grey lunchbox.

“Hi, are you waiting here for someone?” _ Confirming my identity without giving away hers. That’s smart, something Quinn would think of. Maybe I should play along. _

“Uh, yeah, I’m meeting up with someone.” _ Is this good enough? _ “A friend.” _ Perfect. _ She gave me a smile that I could only really call smug. It _ wasn’t, _but I didn’t know how to better name it.

“Well, mind if I take this seat?” She gestured to the swing beside me. I nodded and she placed her lunchbox on the ground before sitting down. “I’m meeting someone here as well. Also a friend.” Her voice was playful, serving to show off how much more experience she had with this.

“Cool, cool.” I looked away from her, staring in the general direction of some people on the sidewalk. _This is really awkward. Why did I do this?_ _This is why I need Quinn._

“What are you and your friend going to do?”

“Uh.” _ Okay, okay, just put an end to this, this is stupid. _ I looked back at her. “Guh, sorry, um.” _ But don’t make it clear that you have powers just in case she actually isn’t who you’re meeting up with. _ “We’re just going to walk around and discuss uh..” _ Come on, you got this. _ I looked between the container she’d brought and her. “Lunchboxes.”

“Lunchboxes?” She raised an eyebrow and kept up her smirk. “What about lunchboxes?”

“Things kept in them, I guess.” _ I can’t believe this is actually the best I could think of. _ “Food, uh. Maybe some homework, sometimes? If you need to do that for some reason.”

“Well, I guess a lunchbox can work as an alternative to a _ briefcase _ if one really needs it to.” She emphasized the word as she reached over and put the container on her lap.

“I..” _ Holy shit, you fucking idiot. _“I’ve been really out of it the past week, I’m..” I sipped my coffee to hide my face. “I promise I’m not that stupid.” She chuckled with a level of friendliness I’d never heard from anyone other than Quinn or my parents.

“Hey, we all have slow days. I won’t tell anyone if you agree not to say anything to my boss about showing up a few minutes late.” She winked at me and I let myself ease the tension in my shoulders by a small fraction. “Anyways, I’m Ashley. What’s your name?”

“Uh.” _ Okay, you’re here to talk about this, there’s no reason to hide it here. Just be honest, and it’s not a big deal if she’s weird about it. _“I’m Riley. Kinda. That’s actually a pretty large part of why I’m talking to you today.”

“Oh?” For the first time in our talk, she looked a little taken off guard. _ I guess most people don’t get hung up on such a simple question. _

“Yeah, um.” _ Come on, push through it. One step away from the top of the mountain. It’s all downhill from then on. _“My legal name is Reynold. I’m uh..” I looked around me to make sure no one had snuck up behind me, and also to stall to some extent. I spoke quietly even though we were decidedly alone. “I’m transgender.”

“Oh.” She let that thought churn in her head for longer than I would’ve liked, and I very nearly began to panic. “Alright, I can see why that might be something of concern.” Just like that, she was back in her element. “Well, I’m here to help any way I can. What are you worried about, specifically?”

“I guess I’m just not sure what to do. At all, really. Do I join the Wards or not? If I don’t, I guess I need to find some way to be productive as a rogue, but I don’t know what I’d do with that. I’m obviously not going to be a villain. If I join, do I just pretend I’m a boy? Do I pretend I’m a, uh, normal girl? Do I just.. be honest? And hope nobody hates me? I have no idea where to go from here, but I know I can’t just sit around and do nothing.”

“Well, first off, I can’t say this for the whole team, but every member of the Remure City Wards I’ve talked to has seemed very open-minded. I’m sure that doesn’t completely calm your nerves, but hopefully it helps a little.” She smiled warmly at me through the cold air, and I briefly reflected on how it was fucked that this was the nicest anyone who wasn’t close to me had ever been.

“Now,” she continued, “I _ am _required to try to push you down the hero path. Just between us, though, it’s not the end of the world if you need to wait until you’ve got everything better figured out. I don’t think it needs to come to that, though. The Wards have provided a very tight-knit support system for thousands of people around the world, and everyone there’s got something they’re dealing with. I’m sure you’d be able to find people to help you through your journey.”

“I guess it’s just hard to believe that things could be any different than they have been. I’ve had one friend my entire life. I don’t mind that, really, but it does mean the overwhelming majority of people I’ve met have either not thought twice about me, or hated me to some capacity. I’m not really the best with people, so I kinda doubt that I’d work well in a team. I also don’t think I’d be a very good hero without the help of my best friend. But she doesn’t have powers.”

“What does she do to help you?” I took a drink from my cup and spaced out as I thought of a response.

“It’s not really about what she does, I think. She’s a lot better at understanding tactics, or dealing with the people side of things. Hell, the one time I’ve really done anything heroic would’ve gone completely south if she wasn’t around. I’d have blood on my hands just because I don’t know how to calm myself down, let alone somebody else. It’s intense, you know?” She nodded sympathetically out of the corner of my eye. “I don’t think I could do much to help with a bunch of strangers.”

“Well, maybe they don’t have to be strangers. At least not more than literally, in a couple cases.” I couldn’t help but smile at that, and she did the same upon seeing my reaction. “I could see about getting a few volunteers to spend some time with you. You wouldn’t get to talk to everyone, but it could give you a foundation. You would be provided a temporary costume, of course.”

“Maybe. I’ll think on it.” I finished my coffee and spotted the nearest trash can. “We’ve done a lot of talk without you knowing what my power is.”

“I’m here to talk about what you want to talk about.” She shrugged. “I could go without finding out for the entire time, if you preferred that.”

I checked my surroundings for anyone watching us, looked her in the eyes, and entered. I quickly dashed over, threw away the coffee cup, and headed back to the swing. I sat myself in as close to the same position as I could, using her eyes as a reference point, and came back out. I held my hands up to her. She seemed completely unphased. 

“Teleportation with a twist. It’s less impressive on my side.”

“We can always use more Movers. It’s pretty easy to find at least a few uses for them on any team.” She placed her briefcase back on the ground and crossed her legs.

“Yeah. Anyways, yeah, if I do end up going for your idea, I’m guessing you think I should be honest about my.. situation?”

“I think you should do whatever you feel safest doing. While I think people would be accepting of you, it wouldn’t do anyone any good to have you starting out with something that stresses you out so much you can’t focus on making connections.”

“Damn. Or, uh, just.. yeah. I’m not used to people being this considerate.” I cleared my throat and avoided looking at her. “Anyways, uh. Yeah, that makes sense. I think if I’m in costume I can probably pass well enough, and I think that’d lead to the least amount of anxiety. Better to introduce myself as a girl and get into the details later than have to lie and correct it later, right?” She nodded. “Right. I feel like I had more I wanted to ask about, but I can’t really think of it right now.”

“Well, I don’t have anywhere else I need to be for the next hour. I can stay here with you until then, and maybe we can chat until you remember any other questions?”

“Mm, yeah.” I forced myself to face her and felt a smile creep up on me. “That sounds nice.”

* * *

I gently swayed back and forth, firmly grasping the card Ashley had given me so the wind didn’t blow it away. _ How much of that was business as usual, and how much was genuine? Does she give out her direct work line to everyone, or just clients she likes? What even is the rest of her job? She can’t just do things like this all day. Maybe that means it’s less fake, because she doesn’t have to give the same kindness to dozens of people each day. Or maybe she’s just like the woman who sold me that dress. _

_ I kinda doubt that superheroes-in-training would be all too keen on talking to some random nobody for a few hours. I’m not going to completely turn down the idea, but it seems unlikely to me that it’d go well. I know she said they’ve all got something going on, but how many of them are going to have something on my level? Quinn’s bought into this whole conspiracy shit, but I don’t know. What if what happened to me is just some kinda fluke? _

_ I should’ve brought my backpack with me. _ I hopped off the swing and started walking to a spot no one would be able to see. _ I didn’t think I’d actually feel okay enough after this to go into school, but I guess it’s not a huge deal if I’m an extra half an hour late. _ I took a deep breath as I made it to a corner of a building. _ It’s a quarter of a day, I can do this. _ I used my power and began the long walk back home.


	4. Cage 1.4

Second period ended soon, and I’d been done with my vocabulary homework from _ first _ period for five minutes. I’d finished the test before anyone else, and neither Riley nor Vincent were in this class. _ Not that Riley’s even here right now. Ugh. Science is at least interesting when something’s happening, but the next class is going to be a complete slog. Hopefully she shows up by lunch, at least. _

I kept myself from looking at the clock, knowing that my perception of time would slow down even more if I focused on it. _ Just a few more minutes and then I can enjoy a short reprieve. Just a little more time and then I can stretch my legs. Just- _ The bell rang, and I rushed out the door as Mr. Nelson tried to speak over the chaos. I kept my head down as I made my way to my locker, weaving through the growing crowd.

“Hey.” I startled and nearly lost my balance, but managed to catch myself with a hand on the wall. Immediately after, I realized whose voice it was.

“Shit, hey Rey.” I didn’t feel particularly good about how easy it was for me to slip back into the old name, but it was for the better.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to sneak up on you. You kind of get lost in your own world sometimes.”

“Heh, yeah, I guess.” I smiled at her and opened up my locker. “Today’s been dreadful so far. I’m glad you’re here now, though. They’re serving pizza for lunch.”

“I wouldn’t have come in at all today if I’d known that ahead of time.”

“What, like it’s at all worse than the sludge we get any other day?”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, it’s the closest thing to actual food they have here. But if I’m gonna have pizza, I want it to be _ good. _ The ‘pizza’ we get here ruins all of the stuff for me for at least a few days.”

“If anything, it makes me want to eat good pizza more than usual. Which has its own issues, I guess.” I finished getting what I needed from my locker, closed it, and was met with a melancholic frown. “No, it’s fine. I’m fine.” She persisted and I shifted uncomfortably. “I need to get to class, I’ll talk to you in a bit.” I brushed my hand along her shoulder as I walked past, hoping to reassure her.

_ Why do you act like I haven’t grown at all? I’ve made a lot of progress, I’m not.. ugh. Whatever, she’s looking out for me. It’s not like I don’t appreciate her effort, so I shouldn’t be getting upset about it. She won’t be around as much one day, and that could start as soon as tomorrow, so I need to cherish what I have. I have a friend who cares about me and.. ugh! _

I walked into Mrs. Foster’s classroom and found Vincent among the few people who’d arrived before me. I set up in the back of the room beside him. There were still a couple minutes before class would begin, so I sat back in my chair and stared down the inside of my eyelids. _ I do _ not _ need this shit right now. I need to see about dropping this for another elective. An easy ‘A’ is not worth this, and it’s not like there are any notably difficult ‘A’s anyways. _The bell rang and the remaining students funneled in.

“Good morning, class. I hope you all had a nice afternoon.” Mrs. Foster’s voice chirped through the room, grating against my ears. A few people responded with unenthusiastic mumbles. “I watched a very interesting documentary to prepare for today’s lesson. Before that, though, a quick refresher.” _ Ugggggghhhhhhhhhhhh. _ “Can anyone tell me where the first Endbringer attack took place?”

I groaned to myself and rested my head on the desk, behind my arms, tuning out my surroundings. _This is the point of homework, you don’t need to waste our time on this. You’re already teaching us shit everyone in the world knows, so what’s the point?_ _Not to mention all the propaganda-filled bullshit. Your entire job is a joke._ My internal rant was interrupted by the sound of a note being slipped onto my lap. I casually opened it up and indulged in the one thing that would make this period tolerable.

_ ‘not a fan?’ _

_ ‘Maybe if the teacher was half competent, I would be.’ _

_ ‘damn, not even half? harsh’ _

_ ‘She’s just here to feed us the garbage the PRT wants us to think. It’s almost entirely fake, just out there to keep everyone sedated. It’s insulting.’ _

_ ‘you sound pretty sure of that. if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were out there fighting the good fight. how’d you hurt yourself?’ _

My body froze, and my mind raced. _ Shit. No, shit! He’s not even right, but now my reaction will make him think something’s up. Something _ is _ up, but it’s something else, and he’ll think it’s this, but- fuck! Move. Respond. Your best option is to just be honest. _

_ ‘My Dad.’ _

I saw his eyebrows slightly raise in my peripheral vision. _ A successful sacrifice, I guess. Probably necessary. It’s fine, anyways, since we’re going to be friends. Maybe. _

_ ‘shit, sorry. hope it’s not too bad’ _

_ ‘It’s fine, it’s my own fault. Don’t worry about it, I’m fine. So what about you, do you buy this shit?’ _

_ ‘no reason not to, I guess’ _

_ ‘Plenty of reasons. There’s a ridiculous amount of holes, and a lot of evidence to suggest that those holes lead to something big. They’ve covered a lot of it up, though, so you have to go out of your way to find it.’ _

This would serve as a bit of a test, to see if he was someone I’d actually be able to trust. _ Worst case scenario, I’m back to where I was before all of this. A crazy, cynical girl with only one friend. No point in delaying the process if that’s how things are going to go. _

_ ‘what kind of holes? and where are you getting your evidence? you might just be being messed with. you seem smart, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be fooled’ _

_ ‘Believe me, I’ve been very careful in my research. You have to be to even find this stuff; it’s all buried under mountains of trash info. Whether put there by the PRT as a distraction, or by idiots who don’t know what they’re doing, it’s something you have to look out for.’ _

_ ‘what holes?’ _

_ ‘Whoops, sorry. Where powers come from, for instance. I know there’s supposedly a lot we don’t know, but I refuse to believe that after all these years we don’t have a better guess as to why some people have superpowers where others don’t. The running theory is kind of like God-approved eugenics, and I don’t even believe in any Gods but I still think that’s fucked up.’ _

_ ‘damn. sounds like you’ve put a lot of thought into this’ _

_ ‘Most people don’t put enough thought into it. It was a gamble whether you’d immediately shut me down or not, honestly. So many people write this off as paranoid right off the bat.’ _

_ ‘I mean, I don’t know if I really believe it, but it’s interesting. I’d be down to hear more about it if you ever want to talk my ear off some time’ _

_ ‘Absolutely.’ _

It took a lot for me not to show any tells of my excitement. _ Fuck yes! I can’t remember how long it took for Riley and I to become friends, but that had to have been significantly faster. _ I checked back in on the clock, finding that we’d been at it for almost half of the class. _ Worth every second. _

* * *

The lunch bell had brought an end to fourth period, and with it the promise of mediocre food. I met up with Riley on the way to the cafeteria, and she pulled me aside, away from everyone else.

“Hey, real quick, the appointment went well. We talked about a lot of things, I’m not joining just yet. She had an idea that I’ll run by you later.”

“Okay. Cool.” _ Good, more time for me to figure something out. _“I’m glad it was good.” We continued to our original destination and got our food. I made sure to sit next to Vincent, and took note of Riley hesitating for half a second before doing the same. “Hey, V.”

He nodded. I don’t know why I’d expected any different. I made some small talk and managed to get through my first piece when they arrived.

“Aw, look, the lesbo and her little boyfriend are back together. What happened, you couldn’t pretend he’s just a really ugly butch anymore?” Sandra and her posse were at the top of the social food chain, and we were at the bottom of it. The fact that they went after us instead of getting a more satisfying meal said a lot about just how fragile their position was.

“You three didn’t get sick of being a one-brain cell bitch trio?” I smirked at Riley, but my smugness quickly turned to concern when I saw she was cowering. Vincent lowered his head a bit, seemingly just trying to ignore the situation.

“Looking to your loser squad for support?” Marissa wasn’t the smartest, but she didn’t need to be. She could get by with making basic observations, and then leaving the hard parts to the other two.

“Yeah, congrats on getting a new member,” Sandra said. “Couldn’t handle a few days without someone to blabber to, huh? Good thinking on picking the mute. Sucks that neither of them are worth anything when it actually matters.”

“Fuck you.” I tried my hardest to stay calm as I faced them, but I didn’t do a particularly good job at it. _ Leave them alone, assholes. Riley doesn’t need this shit, and you’ll scare off Vincent. _

“What, here in the cafeteria? Gosh, I knew lesbians were horny, but wow!” Beth laughed at Sandra’s joke, then mumbled an affirmation and went back to being silent. “I bet the reason you only talk to boys is because all the girls keep catching you staring at their boobs.” She emphasized the last part by puffing up her chest. I maintained hard eye contact, unwilling to play into her game.

“Fuck off. Your food’s probably getting cold.” Sandra dropped any level of feigned friendliness, and the others followed suit.

“Oh, you think so? We already finished ours, maybe you need to take extra long to make sure it stays down.” Their laughter was cut off prematurely by the sound of their leader falling on her ass after I kicked her in the stomach. I stood up, tossed my second and last slice of pizza onto her lap, and pushed through the crowd I hadn’t noticed forming.

Riley came after me, but I couldn’t make sense of her voice over the sound of blood rushing in my ears. Some teacher grabbed me, but I shook them off and continued to storm to the main office. I burst through the door and headed straight for David’s office. More voices in the background, more to ignore.

“Expel me!” I slammed my hands on the chair, gripping the metal.

“Quinn.” He looked back at me, for the first time with unwelcoming eyes. His voice was stern, aggressive.

“Fuck you, convince them to expel me! I just assaulted a student and nearly broke your door! Detain me, for all I fucking care. Get me out of here, now.” Riley came in a couple seconds later, along with the secretary and Mr. Larson. David raised his hand, stopping them from speaking, then gestured for me to continue. I fumed, I wanted so badly to scream more, or to fuck _ him _ up for pretending he could have any control over the way kids are. _ “There’s always someone else.” _

I took a deep, shaking breath instead, and sat down. _ Calm yourself. It’s better to do this with a level head, for many reasons. _I looked back at Riley and patted the seat next to me. She took it, and Mr. Larson came closer.

“I am not fit for this place in any fashion. I’m too smart for my classes, I’m too weird for the kids here, and I waste far more of your time than any individual should. I am not meant to be a high school student. If the past two years have shown me anything, what I’ve done today would be a suspension at most. The staff doesn’t give a shit about keeping kids safe. Tell them to expel me. They’ll listen to you, you know how fucked up I am more than anyone else does.”

“Quinn, I don’t think you’re fully grasping how serious what you’re asking for is, let alone how little it would do to actually solve your issues.” He leaned backwards in his chair as he turned his attention towards the others. “I know this isn’t how things are usually handled, but how about you let Ms. Kelly and Mr. Green talk with me for a bit before we determine our course of action?”

“She just-” I turned to look at Mr. Larson, and he seemed almost _ scared _ as he rubbed his wrist. _ Shouldn’t have tried to stop me. _ “Fine,” he growled. The secretary was already halfway back down the hall when he followed and closed the door behind him. David cleared his throat, and I turned back to him.

“What did they say? I don’t need to know what you did, I can imagine.” I began to talk, but Riley beat me to it.

“They were being horrible! I guess Sandra decided that Quinn wasn’t reacting well enough, because she brought the vomit incident back up. Even after the last time, a whole fucking year later, she went ahead and dug it up again. She deserves worse than a stomach ache and a grease-stained skirt.” I wanted so badly to hug her and tell her how much I appreciate her, but I was too shocked to react at all.

“Mm.” He held his hand to his face and looked at the two of us. “You’re not going to be expelled, Quinn. You’ll undoubtedly get a suspension, but I’ll make sure those girls get one as well. Think of it this way though - you get a fun challenge in making up a few days of work, and they have to struggle with the same thing. Win-win, right?”

“It’s petty,” I said. “I don’t need that, I need something that will _ work _ . I need something that _ matters _ . I want to make a difference in the world, but I don’t have any way to do that. Nobody seems to get that. I’m so far beyond all of this, I shouldn’t have to waste more years of my life on this shit when I could easily outsmart the average adult. I have something _ special _ in me, you know this, and I should be spending every waking moment of my life working on projecting that into the world.”

“This is a bit more open than I’m supposed to be, but I’d be lying if I said I’m not afraid you’d lose yourself without some kind of structure to your life. It’s too easy for me to picture you endlessly chasing progress, never taking the time you need to care for yourself. I do see that spark in you, and I know you can do something great with it, but I don’t think taking you out of school would be the way to go about that, even _ if _ it were a possibility. Which it’s not.”

“Ugh.” I crossed my arms and looked off to the left, away from everyone. “You’re annoyingly good at this, I’m already calmed down. That’s a _ good _ thing, but it’s still stupid.”

“We’ve all got to be good at something, right?” _ If only Riley could realize that applies to her as well. _

“Yeah.” We sat in that for a minute, thinking of where to go from there. “I don’t see any chance of anything changing. It’ll be worse now, if anything, thanks to my stunt. Sometimes I wish they were dead, but some other bitches would take their place. That’s just how high school is, right? That’s what everyone says.”

“You’re right, unfortunately. That doesn’t mean we can’t do something about it. Reynold” - he turned to her - “I’m guessing Quinn has told you about my promises to deal with your assailants. I’m sure you have doubts about it. I know my word isn’t as valuable to you as it seems to be to Quinn, but I assure you that this goes far beyond simple, ineffective punishment.” _ Oh? _

“I don’t want to talk about that right now, this isn’t about me.”

“Hey, no, this is as much about you as it is me.” _ Even if you want to pretend otherwise. _ “Besides, I imagine there’s more to this.” I looked to David for support. “This involves me as well, right?”

“Yes. I have a plan that should leave you both in much better positions by the end of the year. It’s not something I can go into too much detail about, but I can tell you that it involves me making the most of my standing with the rest of the staff. I fill a role that they all rely on, and I do good work, so I’ve earned a few favors. This is top secret, though, got it?”

“Mhm.” Riley hesitated, and I looked at her as best as I could without actually shifting my eyes in her direction. _ She doesn’t get it. She thinks this is weird, possibly even dangerous. “Why does he care about you so much? About me?” She’s not the kind to interfere with what she doesn’t understand, but I need to keep an eye out regardless. _ I put a hand on her shoulder and smiled assuredly at my counselor in shining armor. “We appreciate it.”

“Mm.” He gave me a hard look, and I nearly panicked. I stopped myself before things got too bad, reminding myself that our arrangement couldn’t possibly take any hits from this. Still, the thought chilled me. “Anyways” - he let up - “we’ve spent enough time here, we should report to the others. I’ll do most of the talking.”

We got up, and David led the march to my executioners. Riley kept us a short distance behind so she could whisper to me.

“What was all of that?”

“Later.” I picked up the pace, and she stepped in line.

* * *

I’d been sitting a block away from the school, under a small tree, just far enough that they couldn’t yell at me. I couldn’t go home, and I didn’t want to deal with questions from Riley’s parents, so I waited and watched a squirrel run around for a while. When the last bell rang, I stood up and looked for my friends. I spotted Vincent first, and caught his attention.

“Hey, you usually walk home, right?” He nodded. “Mind if Rey and I come with you until we diverge? Normally we bus, but I’ve been looking for an excuse to get some more exercise.” He shrugged. “Great, lemme just..” I expected to see her within a few seconds, but ended up causing us to awkwardly stand there for at least a minute. “There, finally.” I rushed over to grab her and pulled her back to Vincent.

“Did you wait outside in the cold for _three hours?”_ _Of course, dummy. What else am I going to do?_

“No, I stayed at the park for a little bit. Nothing better to do, and you know I don’t chill easily.” She seemed to buy it, but still looked a bit puzzled by the whole situation. “Right, so I figured we could walk home. With Vincent. We could both stand getting into better shape, admittedly more so on my part than yours”

“I guess, yeah. Hi, by the way.” She raised her hand a little bit and gave a tiny wave. Vincent nodded, once again showing off how versatile a single head movement could be.

“Alright, let’s get going.” We walked along the sidewalk, and after a minute or so Riley and I ended up trailing a couple feet behind Vincent. It was hard to include him in the conversation, but he didn’t seem to mind. Even still, I wanted to give it a shot. “Today wasn’t your first time being so close to the action, huh? You’ve got a pretty good strategy. Sorry it had to happen the _ exact _ day we decided to sit next to you.”

“Geez, yeah, that probably wasn’t the best first impression.” She waited a couple seconds for a response, and then didn’t seem satisfied with the shrug she got. “I mean, uh, you’ve probably got a lot of impressions of me. We haven’t talked or whatever, but we sit near each other. I guess we haven’t even talked until right now, so this would be the first impression based on that. And that’s dumb, because of what I was just uh.. yeah.” She swallowed awkwardly and urged me to step in.

“Anyways, yes, those guys are awful. You’ve been around us for long enough to know that the stuff today isn’t the norm by any means, so you don’t have to worry about me going crazy on you. Promise.” _ I can’t believe he’s still interested, most people wouldn’t find me worth the trouble. Maybe it’s just because he doesn’t have any other options. _

“Everyone’s trying really hard to fuck us over lately. Not like they haven’t always, but way more the past month. I’m not sure what happened to cause it, if anything.”

“I think they’re just starting to realize that there’s only so much more time where this kind of thing will slide. They won’t be shitty popular kids forever. They’ll have to get a job, and being this terrible won’t be accepted. They’re getting the most out of it while it lasts.”

“So it’s not looking great for us these next couple years, huh?” She sounded so defeated. _ It’s ridiculous that I’m in better spirits than her, with how much she’s got to look forward to. _

“No, David’s going to help.” Vincent perked up in a way that made it clear he wanted to continue pretending he didn’t care. Most people probably wouldn’t have noticed.

“Hey, what was up with you two? I know you’ve talked with him a lot, but there was some weird shit going on.”

“I guess it is ‘later’ now,” I sighed. “Don’t tell anyone, either of you.” _ Heh. _ “We have a deal. I tell him whatever gossip I pick up, and he gets people to back off for a few days. I don’t know why he wants it, or what he does to help, but it’s worked for a while now.”

“You don’t care about his reasoning or.. his methods..?” _ Just as paranoid as I’d feared. _

“I’d love to know, and I plan to find out some day, but I can live with the ignorance until then. I’m not going to sabotage what we have any time soon, especially when it’s realistically just that he finds this kinda stuff to be a nice respite from his job. He’s like, what, late twenties? He probably just thinks it’s funny to remember how dumb everyone was and continues to be.”

“I don’t know.” _ Let it be, Riley. Please. _ “I guess. I don’t know.”

Vincent stopped outside of a house nicer than either of ours and opened the fence. He walked through and looked back at us.

“Ah, see you later, V.” He nodded and headed into his house. The instant the door clicked shut, I shifted gears. “So, what’s this big idea you were talking about earlier?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, Ashley.” She took a second to think as we started walking the rest of the way to her house. “We talked about Wards stuff. She said I could meet up with some of the members, hang out with them. I don’t know how I feel about it. If things go poorly, I don’t really have the option to join anymore. We talked a lot about how I’d introduce myself, if I do this. I think I’d want to go in as a girl and maybe tell them what’s up depending on how stuff goes. I think with the right costume I could pass.” _ You told some random stranger? _

“That sounds..” I sighed. “I can’t deny, that sounds pretty exciting. Scary, sure, but.. I mean, think about it, Rye.” _ Hopefully that’s not too close to Rey. _ “You’re going to have to tell them what’s up with you at some point, right? This is a chance to meet some really cool capes face to face. I won’t lie, I’ve been a little hesitant about all of this, but I’ve come to terms with stuff. No matter what, you’re still gonna be here, right? So I’m not going to hold you back from being pals with mini-celebrities, or maybe even being one yourself some day.”

“Wow, um, thank you.” _ That was fairly sudden, even for me. Whoops. _ “I’m sorry I’ve been kind of distant, I don’t want you thinking I’m going anywhere. I’ve just been needing to think about stuff a lot, and I’ve felt kind of guilty. About how things are ending up, I mean.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“No, I know, just.. yeah.”

“Mm.” _ I guess we have that in common. _ “Yeah. Anyways, that’s really cool. I wonder who you’ll get to talk to. Who do you _ want _ to talk to most out of all of them?”

“Uh, I don’t know. They’re all kind of intimidating. Maybe Partition? The rest of them have powers ranging from kind of freaky to outright horrifying.”

“I don’t think Mortar’s freaky at all. I don’t think most of them are, but she’s definitely on the lower end of things. Besides, it’s not like they’re going to be using their powers when you’re just hanging out, right?”

“Wouldn’t they? Or, hmm, I guess not. I’ve been imagining this thing, it’s kind of stupid, uh. A tennis game using our abilities. Or any other kind of sport, but mostly that. We’d probably just hang out and play some video games or whatever, huh?” _ Dork. _ “Then probably Specter Shy or Jaunt, they seem pretty nice.”

“Jaunt’s always seemed like a bit of an asshole to me, but that’s fair enough. I’d give anything for a chance to meet Rue, personally.”

“She’s the only one who seems freaky even _ outside _ of her powers. I feel like she’s the kind of person who’d sneak bats into your car if you piss her off bad enough.”

“Riley, _ I’m _ that kind of person.” I feigned being shot in the heart.

“Yeah, but I _ know _ you! I don’t need to go through the process of befriending _ another _ deranged sadist, you’re already enough of a handful. I sometimes consider going through your stuff just to make sure you haven’t been collecting locks of hair to turn people into frogs.”

“Oh, please.” I rolled my eyes. “They’d be rodents, obviously.”

“Right, of course.” She broke out into a smile, and I returned it. _ This is nice. When was the last time we were able to just have fun like this? A decent chunk was my own fault, but everything’s been ridiculously hard lately. Things are going to be okay, now. We’ll make it through this all together. _

* * *

“Can we talk?” I once again found myself speaking under the hush of the night. _ A comfort required for the flow of certain discussions. Tends to come with the downside of slightly less coherency. _

“Mm, uh.” She removed her earbuds and turned on the lamp. “Yeah, what’s up?” I wasn’t sure what she was listening to, but it didn’t matter too much.

“I guess it’s my turn to do this. This is going to sound a bit less elegant than it was with you, so bear with me.” I paused to take in her response, but she didn’t give me much to work with. _ Deep breath, just go for it. _ “I’ve been thinking, probably a lot less than you did about the gender stuff. Actually, definitely a lot less. The worst part of this is that I’ve not really been thinking about this much at all, until tonight.” _ Get to the point. _

“So,” I continued, “I mean.. you know when someone makes fun of you for something that’s not true, so you write them off? The more they bring it up, the less you think about it, because clearly they’re just making up some bullshit. Well, some day you end up thinking about it a little bit. Hell, maybe you did look into it in the past, very briefly, and then you ran away when you didn’t like what was looking back at you.” _ Maybe she was studying. Stop wasting her time. _

“God, just..” My monologue was really strained at this point, and I felt a tightness in my throat that I wasn’t used to. “I’ve never really had anyone but you in my life, as you well know. I’ve never had a girl for a friend. Until recently, I mean.” Riley seemed completely aware of where I was going with this whole thing at this point, but I was too far in to give up now. “I’ve always assumed, I guess, that I’d find some boy who I just click with. Someone I’d want to spend the rest of my life with.”

“I don’t think you or I have-” I considered for a second. “Like,_ ever _ talked about this stuff. I don’t know if on your side that was because of the gender stuff, or something else, but I’ve never seen any reason to bring this kind of thing up. I’ve never had a crush, or something I recognize as that. As I’ve gotten older, it’s been harder and harder to pretend that I’m normal. Not just with regards to this, but this has been where I’ve taken the longest to accept, I think.”

“Quinn.” She put a very welcome stop to my rambling. She didn’t say any more, letting me continue. _ A reset. Make it count. _

“I don’t have a crush on you. I never have, you’re my best friend. I always assumed that it was about that, though, that the potential wasn’t there _ because _ you’re my best friend. Now that you’re a girl, there’s.. I still don’t have a crush on you, but there’s the potential there? It’s made me think about other girls, about how if I had a closer relationship with some of them.. there could be something there.”

“Well,” she said, “I don’t have a crush on you either.” I couldn’t help but laugh a little bit at that. “Shut up, you know what I mean.” She grinned at me through the dark. “I might just have to get settled into.. girlhood, or whatever. But I think I might just.. not really have any of that stuff? I can relate to you all the way up to the point where you said you might be able to experience this kind of thing. I’m not sure if I can, for one reason or another. I’ve never really known how to bring it up, and I’ve more and more felt like I’m broken in some way?”

“We’re both broken in a lot of ways, but I’m not so sure about this being one of them. Abnormal, definitely, but.. romance is overrated, you know? We’ve gotten this far without any of it. If you don’t want to try it out now, there’s no reason you should have to.”

“Maybe.” _ Quiet, just you and I. Oh, the level of intimacy that can come when you aren’t restricted by society’s expectations. _We only ended the silence when we felt it was the time. “I’m glad we’re talking about this. And I’m also really glad that we waited until now. I think this could’ve gone really differently if we’d tried it a few years ago.”

“Oh, _ definitely. _ Thirteen year old Quinn was _ not _ ready to accept being a lesbian. I can’t even imagine how bad the bullying would’ve been if I’d shown up to school wearing flannel. I absolutely would’ve dipped into every stereotype in the book, regardless of how awful it’d look on me.”

“Huh, yeah, I’m imagining that and.. wow.” She grimaced for emphasis. “You’ve got a really nice style now. I’ve considered asking to borrow clothes, but I don’t think I could pull any of it off.”

“Oh shit, that reminds me, do you want to go shopping some time?” _ Not my favorite pastime, but that could easily change if I had a friend coming along. _

“Ah, uh. Yes, but also, I have to show you something.” She hopped out of bed and over to her closet. “I completely spaced on this, look.” She pulled out a bright blue dress, roughly her size.

“Fuck, that’s pretty. Where’d you get it?” I excitedly scooted over to the side of the bed and held my hands together on my lap.

“I bought it yesterday, actually.”

“No shit, good pick.” _ Yesterday seems like ages ago already. _ “Put it on, let me see.”

“Okay, okay.” She smiled. “Turn around, I don’t want to embarrass myself.” I half complied by laying on my back and holding my hands over my eyes. “I’m still not really sure how all of this stuff works, so you may have to help adjust some things. And I might take a little while, so maybe you should go on a Quinn Rant.”

“I basically just did one, and you know full well that the law says I can only do one per day. Here, we can talk about the Wards some more. Whose power freaks you out the _ most, _ if all of them do on some level?”

“Not _ all _ of them, just.. most of them. And I can’t decide between Marionnettist and Rue. Masters are horrifying as fuck, and I can’t pretend the costume doesn’t add to that. Completely disregarding the outfit, though, probably Rue. I said it before, but I don’t need another sadist in my life. And she _ actually _ is one. _ And _ a masochist. I get that that’s needed to do what she does, but it’s creepy.”

“I think it’s neat. The way she works the Catholic symbolism in with it is also really nice. For me it’d absolutely have to be Jaunt. There’s a lot you can do in a minute as a giant raging monster, and his whole vibe _ screams _ future wife beater.”

“What? No. Guh, maybe. But that’s cheating, that’s looking into more than just the power.”

“There’s no one else I’m all too concerned about. What’s the worst Marionnettist is going to do to someone like me, jack me off?” I cringed. “Ew.”

“Ew, what the fuck?”

“Sorry, sorry. I guess Quaver could also fit in the most horrifying. I’ve heard talk that he ignores the Manton Effect entirely. One little yelp and your whole body gets stretched and compressed to hell and back. It doesn’t last, but that still sounds terrifying.”

“I always forget about him. I think he’s shown up to public events twice, max. Shy has her work cut out for her. Maybe they’re dating. Mm, okay, you can look.” I threw myself forward, back into a sit, and took her in. I couldn’t help but hop up and hug her.

“You look adorable, holy shit.” She awkwardly blushed as I adjusted a couple things. “You got most of this right, but the sleeves are supposed to be three quarters length so this bit can bunch up at your shoulders.”

“Oh. Thanks, that feels.. This is going to sound really dumb, but that makes me feel kinda.. fluffy? I like it.”

“Fluffy fits you very well.” I rustled through her cute, frizzy hair. “You really look like a girl. I don’t think anyone would think any different if they didn’t know you beforehand. Maybe we could dress you up when we go shopping, would you be okay with that?”

“Ah, uh. Maybe. Thank you. For saying I look like that, I mean.” _ You look even cuter when you’re being complimented, damn. _

“I’m just being honest with you. You look really, really pretty. I think if we threw some very minimal makeup on you, maybe some lipstick, you’d be completely indistinguishable from a cis girl. I love that terminology, by the way.”

“Yeah, me too. It’s picking up some steam online, but it’s still not popular or anything.”

“I’m amazed it hasn’t been in use for as long as we’ve known about this kind of thing,” I said. “Anyways, really, you’re gorgeous. I’m so glad you’re sticking to blue, the Lady costume looked really garish.”

“It wasn’t great, yeah. It was worth a shot, at least.”

“If you say so.” I smirked at her. “I’m really proud of you, Riley. You’re really coming into your own. Most people would’ve drowned in the pain of this kind of thing for ages, but you’ve really run with it.”

“I.. thanks.” She shrunk down into her poofy shoulders and looked at the rest of her dress.

“Shit, sorry. I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable, I’m just really excited to help you out with this kind of thing.”

“You’re not making me uncomfortable, I just.. don’t think I deserve this, I guess. When I look in the mirror I look.. more feminine, sure, but also still very much so not.. a girl. It’s hard for me to imagine anyone seeing me as much more than a crossdresser.”

“Ah..” I slumped back onto the bed and grabbed her hands. “Well, maybe we could get you a wig or something. I think your dress covers up the shoulders well enough, and even without that I think they look fine.. What are you most worried about?”

“I don’t know.” She fell face first into the expanse of her blanket, and I laid on my back beside her. “All of it? I don’t know.” She turned her head towards me, enough to stop her voice from being muffled. “I like my hair as it is, but I feel like people would see it as a boy thing. Most of the issues I have are things I actually _ like, _ but that would look out of place. I have to find a balance between how I want to look and how people see me, and that sucks.”

“I hadn’t thought about that.. That’s really unfair, huh? It’s kind of like the flannel thing but a lot worse. The opposite, in some ways. It’s like if you _ wanted _ to wear the flannel, but knew that people would assume you’re gay. And you _ are _, but you don’t necessarily want everyone to know that. Fuck, that’s shitty. I’m sorry, Riley.”

“Yeah, it’s not the nicest. I’ll figure it out, though. Got ages to think about this kind of thing. And with your help, I won’t have to sweat things like.. ‘are these shoulders puffy enough', or anything like that.” She softly smiled at me, and I realized how tired I was as I saw the same in her eyes.

“We should get some sleep. I’m glad we could do this, sorry that I kept you up.”

“It’s okay, I was just trying out a podcast. Not my kind of thing.” She rolled onto her back and stretched. _ We can deal with the dress in the morning. Her parents don’t tend to check on us before work. _

“Mm.” I shuffled a little further onto the bed, but had resigned myself to the fact that we’d both be sleeping awkwardly that night. “Goodnight, Riley. I love you.”

“Love you too, goodnight.”

* * *

_ Okay, let me retrace my steps and try to stay calm. No use in freaking out about this. I provoked my father, got him to hurt me. Can it be delayed? I saw no results and got Riley’s help. We talked, then fell asleep. She had an appointment and was late to school, but I went at the normal time. Boring classes. I pushed Sandra to the ground, she deserved it. I talked with David, talked with Riley. Got suspended, waited outside for hours. Talked with Vincent and Riley. Boring homework. Homework, despite the suspension. Done quickly. Wrote, checked the forums. Talked with Riley, came out. Maybe that? Woke up, ate a good breakfast. Walked. Then I noticed it. Must be delayed. _

_ Thinking clearly isn’t helping anything right now. _ I took a step forward and reached my hand out. Sparks danced between my fingertips, and I felt light on my feet. My mouth was dry from thirst, complementing my headache. My body ached, and yet never felt so free of burden. _ Maybe I should try something stupid, instead. _


	5. Cage 1.5 R

_ Five.. four.. three.. two.. one.. then the two second delay, and- _ The bell rang, putting an end to the school day. It was the first full day of Quinn’s suspension, and her absence meant I’d had a reason to spend some time with Vincent.  _ Seems weird to call it that, since we didn’t do much more than jog next to each other in P.E., but that was probably some of the most he’d socialized in years. Poor guy. _

I left class after the majority of the crowd had scrunched through the door, making sure to wave goodbye to Ms. Holly. Sticking to the sides as I walked down the hall to my locker, I grabbed my stuff, turned on my phone, and headed for the exit. Quinn had called me a few hours ago, and- twenty-seven texts? I stopped in my tracks and skimmed as many of them as I could.

_ ‘New development, know you’re busy. Will talk about it later.’ _

_ ‘Can’t talk about it here but have a lot to say.’ _

_ ‘You probably already know what I’m talking about.’ _

_ ‘This is easily the most important event of my life. All lives?’ _

_ ‘You need to stop keeping your phone in your locker.’ _

_ ‘Call me as soon as you see this.’ _

I called her as I started walking again, hearing another text come in as the phone rang. She picked up almost immediately afterwards.

“Riley! Good, good, you’re here. We need to talk, I’m sure you got my texts, are you out the door yet?” She was speaking so frantically that I could barely keep up.

“Hold on, hey, what’s going on Quinn? I’m-” I lost my footing. No, it was taken from me. My phone hit the ground a fraction of a second after I did. My arms took most of the blow.

“See you tomorrow, pussy!” I couldn’t identify which one of them said it, but the specifics didn’t matter. I scrambled over to my phone, confirmed a lack of broken glass, and raised it back to my ear.

“Sorry, I’m here.”

“What happened?” I didn’t get a chance to respond. “No matter, you’re okay? Come to Penny’s, quickly. No time to explain.” She hung up, and I used the wall to stand myself up.  _ Fuck, what did you do this time? _ I collected myself and began the walk to the bus stop. My ankle was in pain, possibly sprained, so I had to take more time than I would’ve liked.  _ When is this stream of bullshit going to end? Don’t we have enough going on without you doing all of this.. whatever the fuck? Didn’t even say goodbye. _ I sighed and trudged on.

_ There’s no way it’s.. I mean, fuck, what would she be this excited about other than that? But why now? Why would she be given powers now of all times, after days of anguish from trying to force it? A joke? From God? The universe?  _ I thought very briefly about a bus swerving into me, weakly laughed, and sighed.  _ Long day. _

* * *

I hopped off the bus and walked a couple blocks, stopping outside Penny’s Pizza Parlor. I couldn’t spot Quinn from a cursory glance, so I went inside. A man working there greeted me, and I waved back at him. I looked around, hoping not to grab anyone’s attention, and.. nothing. I stepped back out and off to a side alley, then called Quinn.

I heard her ringtone a second later, coming from above.  _ She’s on the roof? _ I used my power and was barraged by a singular tone which got exponentially louder with every passing moment. My phone screeched and pounded against my ear drums. I deactivated and the noise returned to normal. I marveled at the fact that I wasn’t deaf, or even just struggling to hear the relatively faint sounds around me.  _ Blessing and a curse. _

“Hello?” Quinn spoke as soon as the ringing stopped, and I brought her to my ear.

“Fuck, hey.”

“Finally! I thought you’d be here a lot sooner. I didn’t think to call until thirteen minutes had passed, and at that point I felt there was no point. I didn’t even realize the time had passed until then, I’ve been thinking about so many things. Come on up, I need to show this to you.”

“Hold on, I..”  _ Just talk to her face to face. _ “Okay. Fine. One second.” I hung up and used my power again.

* * *

_ Foundation. _ I began my ascent, taking note of the fact that the internal monologues were getting shorter as I adjusted more and more.  _ What the fuck is even causing that, anyways? Is that a thing for every cape that nobody talks about? All breakers? Maybe if the Wards thing works out I can get a chance to talk with Trojan about it. Protectorate members talk to the Wards fairly often, right? Maybe that’s just for show. _

I reached the rooftop and focused on the task at hand. Quinn was lying on her back with her right arm held out in front of her.  _ How did she even get up here? _ I took a deep breath and-

* * *

-returned to the real world. Quinn immediately got up and turned to me.

“Riley!” She hugged me and I felt her shaking. She pulled back before I could return it. “It happened!  _ It _ happened! I’m thinking Blaster/Brute/Thinker, but I could be wrong. Maybe Striker instead of Blaster? I haven’t had a safe place to practice parts of this, but I figure there’s no better place to try it than with the help of  _ your _ power!”

“Keep it down,” I warned, “people could hear us.” I sighed. “And.. please just try to calm down, I’m worried about you. What even happened?”

“I don’t even know, is the thing. It just happened - I think it might have been delayed? Maybe I didn’t realize until today for some reason? That seems less likely, but maybe it’s a possibility. I imagine you’ve still got some time until you can go again, so I can show off what I  _ have _ been able to test, okay?”

“I.. Okay.”  _ This is going so fast, my head’s starting to hurt. _

“Okay, so I haven’t pieced together the full extent of the Thinker power, but I know that I can process things  _ much _ faster. Maybe there’s an off switch or a limit, but this has been going for a few hours without any stop so far. I can’t tell if it’s a consequence of the first part, or a secondary ability, but I’m also noticing things a lot more than I usually do. I’m very attentive as is, so you can imagine how much information I’m sorting through right now. It’s incredible, Riley.”

“That’s nice, I-”

“I was thinking I could show it off by looking at a big scene for a second and then answering questions about it. Alternatively, solving some really complex math in a short amount of time.”

“I think it’s pretty clear from all of this that you’re miles ahead of any normal person right now.”  _ How am I supposed to catch up? Please let this not be permanent. _

“Good point, I’ll save it for last. The Blaster or Striker power needs to wait for a controlled environment, is your power back yet?”

“Uh, yeah, just a few more seconds, I think.” I watched her impatiently bounce in place, and I wanted to run away. I wanted to be there for her, but everything about the situation was rubbing me the wrong way.  _ Am I dreaming? _ “Okay, it’s-” She grasped my arm a little tighter than I would’ve liked. I furrowed my brow at her and brought us in.

* * *

“Okay, so the reason why I’m not sure about the nature of this power, as I’ve mentioned, is because I haven’t been able to properly test it. I know that if I focus I can make little bolts of electricity go between my fingers. Not electricity, really, but it looks like it. Probably like your sparks you’ve mentioned, I’d imagine? Maybe only I can see them, I guess we’ll find out. My guesses are that it’s either a beam or laser of some form, hence Blaster, or some sort of melee-ranged shock? I obviously couldn’t test the second part because if it ended up being a laser, well.. it’d be very bad.” She giggled with a sense of mania I’d only seen a couple times before.

“Right, uh. Let’s see it, then, I guess.”

“On it.” She held her arm out, parallel to the ground, with her hand bent upwards. After a few tense seconds with no results, she shifted her hand and stretched her fingertips out in front of her. “Come on, come on..”

“Maybe my power cancels out yours? Not the Thinker part, evidently, but..”

“Oh!” She stopped straining herself and jumped off the ground a little bit. “That makes perfect sense. If basic body chemistry can’t change while here, then why would  _ super _ body chemistry be able to? Interesting.” She held her chin in thought and tapped her foot. “In fact, it might even affect the Thinker part! If there is an off switch or something along those lines, perhaps it can’t be flicked while here.”

“I guess, yeah. No way to tell, yet.”

“Right, right. We’ll have to test it later. I guess we should get out of here and I can show you the Brute power? Not really what I would’ve expected, nor something I’d particularly want, but I guess I can’t complain.”

“Yeah. Going now, heads up.”

* * *

“It’s wild how something as simple as decompression can be looked into with such depth. There’s a lot I could say on the topic, but it’s not important enough. I could say the same for most anything, now.”

“Sounds kind of awful.”

“I like it a  _ lot. _ I’ve always been constantly bored, but now I have the perfect amount of stimulation to keep me some level of entertained forever.”

“I guess. If it’s good for you, that’s good.”

“Anyways” - she clasped her hands together and grinned at me - “the Brute power.”

“Right, what have you figured out so far?”

“Definitely some small elements of enhanced strength, but much more focus on the defensive. I seem to take less damage, all around. I can still be hurt, but it’s as if a massive percentage of the impact is just taken out of the equation. So a pinch is reduced to a tickle, where punching a wall is reduced to a pinch.”

“Damn. Sounds like you got really lucky with all of this. Do you have any name ideas?”

“Not yet, I have to know the extent of all of my powers before I look into that kind of thing. Let’s not get distracted, though, I need to demonstrate.” She crouched down and put her hand on the slate surface.

“Uh..”  _ Won’t that make a lot of noise? Or cause property damage? _ “Are you sure this is a good idea, Quinn?” I lowered myself a bit to get a better look.

“It’s fine.” Next thing I knew, she was pounding her fists on the rooftop, back and forth. She stopped when a stain of red splashed out, looking up and smiling at me. “Barely anything.”

“Quinn, I.. You need to slow down, please. You’re scaring me.” Her face cycled through more emotions than I could count or process, settling on a mix between determination and anger.

“I’m fine.” She stood up and began storming off to the side of the building.

“Please, what are you doing?” I followed behind her right up until she took a step off the edge.  _ Shit. _ I warped over and firmly grasped her arm, pulling her back to safety a little too hard. She crashed against the slate, and I let go as she cried out.

“Fuck!” I rushed to her side, ignoring the pain of my legs jabbing into the hard surface.

“I’m sorry, fuck, I didn’t realize how hard I was grabbing, I didn’t know what to do. Are you okay?” Her hair obscured her face in a mess of black, but I saw a couple tears land on her hand and the ground. “Quinn, I’m sorry. You were about to.. I didn’t-” She hugged me tightly and sobbed into my chest. I held her back and rested my head on hers. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you idiot, I..” She sniffled and pulled back, looking me in the eyes. “Don’t you get it? I felt that. Full force. I wasn’t expecting it, and.. I guess I didn’t feel anything before because I was preparing for it. Bracing myself. The Thinker stuff, too, I.. Riley, I think I made this all up.”

“Oh.” I felt stupid as I said it, but wasn’t sure what else to say. She embraced me again, far less tightly and with more of her face exposed so I could hear her.

“It wasn’t.. I didn’t mean to. I just wanted this so badly, my brain just..” She sighed, the tail end resembling a whimper like a couple nights ago. “I think there’s something really wrong with me, Riley. I’m insane, I have to be, I almost just jumped off a fucking building, I..”

“Quinn, listen.” I rubbed her back, hoping to pile on as much comfort as I could. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, and I’m.. scared, really. For you. But I love you, and I’m here for you. I’m not going to let anything happen to you, okay? We’re going to figure this out together.” We left the conversation on that for a few minutes as I tried my best not to cry along with her.

“Please don’t leave me.” It came out soft, like she didn’t actually want me to hear it and respond. I squeezed her and felt a tear pass through my defenses.

“Never.”

* * *

While Quinn slept under a mountain of blankets, I was doing research. I usually left this kinda thing to her, because I could always count on it being done, but it seemed wrong to do that this time. Maybe it was a stretch to call it research, since most of my time was being spent trying to disprove everything I was finding.  _ There’s got to be some other answer. This has never happened before. She can’t be schizophrenic. _

I pressed on, desperately searching for something to conclusively deny that there was anything too seriously wrong with my best friend. Something I could show her to make her feel better.  _ Sure, she’s the right age to start showing symptoms, and she just spent hours hallucinating and deluding herself. And.. she’s always been kind of paranoid about the PRT.. But, no, she’s.. Keep looking, there’s gotta be something. Be a hero. Be a good friend. _

Nothing came. Though I must have searched for at least three hours, I couldn’t find anything that fit better than that. I stared at the words on my screen, letting them soak in as I accepted my defeat.

“So I was right, huh?” 

“Shit.” I nearly fell out of my chair, bringing attention to the fact that I’d been sitting in a terrible position. I closed my laptop, sat myself up, and swiveled around to look at her.

“Sorry, I woke up a few minutes ago. Wanted to see what you were looking at.” She took a step back and plopped down on my bed. “I’m crazy, then. Guess that’s that mystery solved.”

“You’re not crazy, it’s.. it’s not like that. I just did a lot of reading, you’re.. It’s more like every once in a while you’ll.. be crazy for a little bit..”  _ That’s very reassuring. Good job, asshole. _ “Which, um. I’ll be here when that happens, you know? I’ll make sure you don’t hurt yourself” - an image of her hands flashed in my mind - “uh, too much.”

“Yeah, I guess. I don’t know. Part of me is still kind of convinced, is the thing. Convinced that I do have powers, that my damage resistance is similar to Partition in that it’s based on if I’m aware of it ahead of time. And that if I tried the Blaster thing outside of the influence of your power, that it’d work. I’ve moved on from the Thinker part, at least. I wasn’t doing anything particularly smarter or better than I always have, I was just forcing myself to do it quickly.”

“Ah. I’ll be honest, the entire time it felt kinda fake in some way. Like I was dreaming, or something.”

“Yeah, there’s kind of a haze that’s been over me the entire time, and for days before this. It’s almost like everything other than the powers has felt fake, in my case. Like there wouldn’t really be any consequences to my actions, so I could just.. do whatever and it wouldn’t really matter. I guess that’s why I did the stuff with my Dad and Sandra.”

“Something to keep in mind, I guess. I’m sorry that stuff’s been so awful, Quinn. I’m sorry you have to deal with this. We’ll.. we’ll figure it out, okay?”

“We will, but that doesn’t mean it’s not going to be shit until then. Probably after, too. I’ve always known there’s something wrong with me, though, so this isn’t that big of a deal. Just a rough patch.”

“That’s a good way to think about it.” I got up from my chair and sat next to her, hugging her from the side. “How you feeling about it? We’re talking a lot of logistics, but how are you holding up? Did you sleep alright?”

“Eh, yeah, it was an okay nap. Helped sort things out a little bit. I wasn’t sleeping as long as you probably think, I spent a while just kind of thinking about stuff. I was trying to find a way to tell you what’s wrong with me, but you already got that covered. I appreciate it, by the way. Helps confirm what I was already thinking.”

“It’s the least I could do. I just want to be here for you like you’ve always been for me, you know? I never would’ve realized my anxiety wasn’t normal without your help.”

“Your parents would’ve picked up on it at some point. I just sped up the process a year or two max. In a way, you did the same thing for me. Just confirmed something a lot sooner than it otherwise would have been. I would’ve spent weeks debating it before I came to you, but knowing you already came to this conclusion.. it helps. Still going to doubt it a little bit, but it helps.”

“Well, I’m glad I could do something.” I detached from her and looked at the door to the hall. “Mm, when did you last eat?”

“Guh, I don’t know, yesterday?” She wrapped her arms around herself to replace my hug. “I didn’t realize, I guess I’m kind of hungry.”

“Want me to make you something?”

She nodded.

* * *

Friday came and passed like any other, and it was finally time for the weekend. I got Vincent to give me his phone number, mostly so I could give it to Quinn. _Hopefully this will cheer her up._ _And hopefully she’s eaten today._ I’d made her some toast before school thanks to the extra time my power offered me, but there was no guarantee she’d eaten it. _And hopefully there’s not any more.. stuff._

I was out of my depth with this, but I was fairly used to the experience. I picked up a muffin on the way home for her.  _ A deceptively large amount of food gets packed into these tiny things, should make it easier to get it down. Probably. _ I sighed and unlocked the front door, then headed to my room.

“Hey, honey, I’m home.” The light of Quinn’s phone shone through the blanket covering her. “I brought you some stuff from work.” She groaned in response and peeked out to get a look, blocking the light with her hand. I put down my stuff and handed her the gifts.

“You work at a bakery, now? You’re supposed to tell me this kind of thing. Think of the children.” She wasn’t showing it on her face, but I could make out a little bit of amusement in her voice.

“Well, I don’t know. It’s a couple thousand less a month, but they gave me this muffin for free.” She took a bite, and I nearly broke character in excitement. “Not to mention the phone number of a very attractive man. Right up both of our alleys, obviously.”

“Obviously.” I could barely tell what she was saying through the muffling muffin munches. “Vincent?”

“Yeah. Text only.”

“Duh. Thank you.”

“No sweat. What’ve you been up to today?”

“Eh.”  _ Easily translated to “shut up and let me eat.” Fair enough. _ I got on my laptop and started my homework.  _ At least she’s doing better than yesterday. _

* * *

_ This is a pretty good step forward. _ We hopped off the bus and started the short walk to the park.  _ Exercise should help, right? Endorphins or whatever. And she was right, the other day, I  _ do _ need to get in shape before I can even consider fighting crime or whatever. I’m sure the Wards have training equipment that I can use, but I don’t want to be the only one there who’s winded after ten push ups. _

“.. today.” I missed the first half of what Quinn said, but she’d already accounted for that. “The weather’s nice, but I guess you wouldn’t be able to tell with your head above the clouds. What are you thinking about?”

“Ah, uh. This, mostly.”  _ Is the weather nice? It’s kind of just your average day. _

“Mm. Have you thought about rain at all?”

“Rain?”

“With regards to your power. You’re kind of fucked if it rains. I know that’s not an issue here most of the time, but you could be rendered out of commission during something important if the clouds decide they’re a bit sad that day.”

“Shit, I guess you’re right.”

“On the upside, you have an excuse not to have to help with Leviathan.”

“Or I get completely fucked over, if he comes here.”  _ As if that’s any different from anyone else. _ We reached the track and got ready to jog away our problems.

* * *

Neither of us were feeling particularly excited for the first day back to school, but it seemed like it’d at least be okay. Quinn was doing better, and I’d mostly gotten over my own issues at that point. Everything was pointing towards the next week being tolerable enough. There were bigger things to worry about than bullies.

I was working on finishing up the corrections of my homework, trying to ignore the quiet beeps from the other side of the room.  _ Those two have been at it a lot. I wonder what they talk about. I know she isn’t going off about her conspiracies, there’s no way she’d risk doing that over text. Hopefully she isn’t saying anything about the recent developments. The last thing we need is to get doctors involved. _

I slumped back in my chair, accepting that I wouldn’t be able to do any work until I resolved this line of thinking.  _ I guess they could just talk about capes in general? She’s certainly pretty good at that. That’s probably a sore spot for her right now, though, so not that. Hmm. Where did she say he’s from? The Philippines? Maybe something about that? _

“Uh, hey Quinn. Where did you say Vincent was from?”

“I didn’t. He’s from Canada.”

“Oh. Thanks.”  _ Right, okay, oops. So he’s half Filipino, but he grew up in Canada. That’s pretty interesting, I guess? Maybe they talk about that. _ I hunched back over the paper and grabbed my pencil, preparing to dump another hour or so into it.  _ Or, hmm. That’s not something you can really talk about for decent chunks of several days, so there’s got to be something else. Fuck. _

I sighed and set my pencil back down, resigning myself to a C+.  _ Maybe I should do something to take my mind off of things. We could do something together, help ready up for tomorrow. I wonder how long it’d take to fix up those costumes. _

* * *

“Here we are, the great outdoors.” We stood in our slightly modified outfits, taking in the blue all around us. “It’s not even stupid late. We can just go around and.. yeah. Should be fun.”

“I guess.”  _ Shit. _

“Uh, here. What if we, uh, find somewhere to go where people won’t freak out, and then.. I mean, we haven’t tried patrolling the other way. Where we walk around normally and then we can use my power if we see anything we want to do. That’s exciting, right? Something new?”

“I’m alright, Rye, you don’t need to baby me. I’m just a little sad, is all. This  _ will _ be fun, let’s just get to it, okay?”

“Mm” - I nodded - “gotcha. Yeah, uh, okay. So if you’re okay, uh.” I would’ve been sweating if not for my power. “Are you fine to do..”

“Rooftops? Yeah, I can do that. It’s not like there’s really any other way we could go around without gathering a lot of unwanted attention, anyways.”

“True. I guess I hadn’t really thought that far ahead, I just wanted to hang out with you again like this. Sorry.”

“Riley. Seriously. I’m fine, you don’t need to be all weird.” She accentuated the normality of everything by ascending a pile of trash to get to the top of a tree.  _ Right, this is okay. I guess I’m just on edge after everything that’s happened lately.  _ I followed after her, and we both slowly made our way from there onto the now-familiar roofs. “Ready?”

“I’m the one who should be asking you that. Going now.”

* * *

“You know,” she said, “we should really discuss how to talk about all of this. The terminology, I mean. I keep recycling the same few words in my mind for how to describe what we just did. You down to brainstorm as we go?”

“Uh, yeah, why not?” I looked over the edge, briefly, then made a tiny hop to the next building over. I looked back and saw Quinn struggling a bit, so I had her grab my hand.  _ We’re probably both dead if she falls before my power’s back up, but hopefully it won’t come to that and this can just be some nice emotional support. _ She crossed over and let out a little sigh of relief. I squeezed her hand as a silent congratulations. “So what, like.. poofing?”

“Sure, or something less dumb.” She smirked. “Warping isn’t really accurate, and teleporting doesn’t capture the feeling on the inside. Jumping just kind of sounds lame, but I guess it’s better than poofing.”

“It wasn’t a genuine suggestion, you know. How about phasing?”

“Closer. Passing? That’s got some fun irony to it.”

“Why not go all out at that point? With something blatant, like transitioning.”

“Hmm.”  _ Oh fuck, is she actually considering it? _ “I kind of like that.”  _ Oh my fucking god. _

“Let’s put a pin in it for now.”  _ Or forever. _ “You spotting any tree-cats? Crosswalk grandmas?”

“No, you?”

“Nope.”  _ I haven’t really been looking, though. Too focused on keeping tabs on you. _

“Whatever will we do without being immediately rewarded for three minutes of vigilance? Is there truly no justice in this world?” Though I knew she was joking, I couldn’t help but think of the state of our lives. 

We continued on for a while, talking briefly about various topics now and then, but mostly choosing to be quiet and take everything in. An hour or so went by before we came across anything of note, but it was well worth the wait.

“Incoming.” Two of the Wards, Quaver and Boon, were making their way towards us.  _ Shit, what if they think we’re up to no good? _

“Hold on to my hand. If anything goes wrong, or if I squeeze, use your power.”  _ Glad we’re on the same page. _ I did as she said and we waited as the two approached us. I tried my best to stay calm and to make sure my voice would sound alright.

“Good evening, ladies.” Boon’s calm, raspy voice was one I was fairly familiar with, since he was usually the one leading interviews.  _ It’s a little different in person. _

“And to you, sirs.” Quinn took up the role of respectable superhero better than I could’ve hoped to. Quaver listened intently to the two of them while I tried to figure out if I should say anything if the opportunity arose.

“We were just making the rounds when we spotted you two, and I couldn’t think of the last time we saw new faces who weren’t harassing innocents or stealing goods. You’re vigilantes, then?” He didn’t have to say anything for the threat to be clear, but Quaver clearing his throat surely helped sell the point. The distance between us and them became unignorable in that moment.  _ If he attacks us, there’s nothing we can do. _

“We’re certainly not villains, but calling us vigilantes would be a mistake. We’re just getting practice with our powers before we see about joining your team.”

“Is that so? Well, pardon me, then. I hope the next time we meet on the field we’ll be working together. We can always use more women.”

“Certainly.” There was a long pause before Quinn broke the silence, during which a significant amount of mindgames were being played.  _ Probably, at least. _ “Anyways, we should probably introduce ourselves, yes?”

“Yes, of course, where are my manners today? I’m Boon, as you probably know, and this is Quaver.”

“Quaver can’t speak for himself?” She nudged me, and it took me a little longer than I would’ve liked to realize what she wanted.

“Uh, hi, I’m Shift.”  _ Ugh, fuck, now this is awkward. _ Boon squinted at Quinn, and she lifted an eyebrow.

“We should be returning to our route.” His tone was harsher than before, and I wasn’t entirely sure why. “See you around, heroes.” Quinn said nothing in response, and they left as quickly as they came.

“What.. just happened?”  _ Did we just make enemies? _

“You didn’t realize?” She excitedly turned to me, immediately back to her normal self, and held onto my arms. “I could only barely make it out through his mask, but he’s got that light brown skin tone. His body type, and the refusal to talk.. That  _ had _ to be Vincent. I guess he didn’t realize who we were, or he would’ve done something, right?”

“Hold on, hold on. I..”  _ How to put this lightly? _ “I wasn’t paying much attention to him, but I mean.. You’re recovering from a psychotic break.” She frowned and let her arms drop to her sides. “Just.. Maybe he just didn’t have much to say. I didn’t say anything until you made me, you know? And it’s not like he’s the only guy out there with that skin color. I just don’t want you jumping to any wild conclusions and getting us in trouble.”

“We’ll..” She looked down and away from me. “Ugh, let’s just talk about this later, okay? I’ll put some thought into whether it actually makes sense or not.”

“Quinn..”

“No, just.. It’s not like I was going to do anything stupid, okay?”  _ Am I not supposed to be cautious after what happened? _ “Let’s just go home.”

* * *

“Okay, I’d like to get this over with before it gets too late.” The sun was beginning to set, and I’d almost gotten to the point where I thought our talk might not happen for a day or so.

“Alright, uh..” I closed my laptop and stretched my neck. “I’m ready.”

“I don’t like that you don’t trust me now. It’s as if this one thing has made you forget that I’m  _ really _ smart. I don’t deserve to have you doubting everything I say from now on just because of some stupid shit that  _ probably _ isn’t even going to be an issue in the future.”

“Whoa, hey, I’m not..” My face scrunched up involuntarily. “I’m just concerned about you, I’m not like.. I know you’re smart, and I know you can figure shit out. I just want to make sure you don’t do something you regret, and I think that’s pretty reasonable since it’s only been a couple days since I had to.. you know?”

“It won’t happen again, though. There’s no chance of it now that I know what’s wrong with me. If I can account for something then I can deal with it. Well, I know this now, so I can handle it.”

“Okay, but that’s not how this works? You can’t just..  _ knowledge  _ away all of your problems, Quinn. What if I hadn’t stopped your train of thought, before? Would you have confronted Vincent with this based on a three minute interaction?”

“No, because I’m not a fucking idiot.” She seemed to notice that she was approaching a volume that could get us yelled at, and hushed herself. “I didn’t do anything dangerous until you were there, right? I waited for you to show up before testing any of that shit.”

“Are you kidding me? You climbed up a building without my help, I don’t even know  _ how _ you did that. But it can’t have been safe.”

“I didn’t do it at Penny’s, I went over there after I got up somewhere safe. There’s a convenient way up a few blocks down from there. Maybe you think I’m out of my mind, and maybe I am, but I’m not stupid.”

“Will you stop with that? I’m not saying you’re stupid, you know I’m not. You’re the smartest person I know, you’re smarter than me and anyone else our age. Even most people who are  _ older  _ than us. Is that what you want? Can we stop this shit and talk about anything that actually matters now?”

“Fuck you.” She slammed her head down onto her pillow, then sat herself back up a few seconds later. She didn’t look at me. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

“It’s.. okay. I’m sorry too.” I’d thankfully gotten fairly used to how easily her mood tended to shift.

“No, you’re fine. Even before this, I’ve always had difficulty with not jumping straight into anything that I think makes sense. When people spend so much of your life telling you how much of a genius you are, it’s hard to not just assume you’re always right.” She sighed and scooted off the bed to sit across from me. “All that said, I do think we should talk about Quaver.”

“I do too. I’ve thought about it a little bit more, and I think there is a  _ chance _ that you might be onto something.” I made sure to be very clear that this was not a full endorsement. Still, she seemed happy. “I was actually looking into it before we started talking. There’s surprisingly few pictures of him out there, but he does look notably similar from the very little we  _ can _ see. Which, again, isn’t much.”

“Okay, good, then maybe you’ll be willing to hear out my plan of action?”

“I’ll listen to it, but I can’t guarantee anything beyond that.”

“Deal.” She straightened herself and rolled back her shoulders, as if she were preparing to give a speech.  _ Might as well be. _ “Riley Green, I propose that you take up Ashley’s offer to meet with the Wards. Either see if you can get her to push for Quaver, or tell her to mention your cape name. Both also works, if that’s an option. If it’s Vincent, he’ll want to meet you again. He  _ had _ to have had suspicions about us, right?”

“I really doubt it, honestly. He knows you don’t have many friends, and you’re one of the only people in the world who knows I’m a girl. Maybe he made the connection with you but wrote it off. He almost definitely didn’t think much of me. If it even  _ is _ him.”

“Shit, right.”

“I’ll still give it a shot, though. It’s worth trying, and.. I really should get this stuff over with, anyways. I’ve sorta already gotten everything I can out of our practice, you know? I’m getting older, and if I’m going down this road then I should start really training as soon as possible. I don’t want to die on my first real job just because I waited for ‘the right time’ to get serious.”

“Mm.” We both sat there in silence for a little bit before I reached out my hand to her. She grabbed on and we stayed like that for a few minutes. “I love you, Riley.”

“I love you, too.”

“Now, go set up a meeting before it gets too late.”

“Heh, yes ma’am.”


	6. Cage Interlude - Quaver

After a long day of vocal training and patrolling with no action, Quaver wanted nothing more than to go home, eat some food, and pass out before school. Unfortunately, he had other things that had to be done before the night ended, along with a few big questions he was going to have to ponder for a while.  _ Has my secret been leaked? If not, then who the fuck were those two, and what are they planning? _ Even if they  _ were _ planning on joining the Wards, which he couldn’t be sure of, there was still something very wrong.

He pressed the power button on his computer and leaned back in his chair while it booted up.  _ The quiet pink one was Shift, and the other girl was.. I don’t think we actually got her name. It shouldn’t matter, if the records have anything on either of them, one will do. By the looks of their costumes, they probably haven’t been at this for a while. That, or they’re trying to give off that impression so people underestimate them. The purple girl seems like just the type to do something annoying like that. They could both be some new ploy from the Mixup Marshals. _

He straightened himself and logged in, then pulled up the Parahuman Database and searched for the capes. There was only one result, depicting an event from a week prior.

_ ‘Protectorate member Radar prevented a civilian suicide attempt spurred on by the Red Iron. Two unknown capes, going by Shift and Cheshire, assisted in the rescue.’ _

As he read through the report, it became more and more clear that they were genuinely just two dumbass kids who were figuring out how to deal with their new powers.  _ I guess that gets rid of one part of the issue, but none of this tells me what I need to know. _ He sent in what little information he had on the two into the server, despite knowing that Boon would’ve done so first thing upon getting back, then turned the computer back off. He crawled into to his bed and rested his arm over his eyes to block the light.

_ I know it’s not hard to tell what’s going on with me from just one in-person interaction, but she seemed to know what was up ahead of time. I shouldn’t have even gone over there; the entire thing was probably premeditated. Is she a precog, or have our methods for keeping my secret under wraps been for naught? I’ll have to sift through discussion of me online. I’d ask Quinn what she knows if she wasn’t smart enough to figure out- _

_ Oh my fucking God. _

_ No, God damn it. There’s no way. What fucking girl is  _ Quinn Kelly _ friends with? They apparently just got their powers, so it’s unlikely they met on the field or whatever. Quinn probably triggered off of the thing with her dad, if that was even what really happened. God damn it, how did I not realize this sooner? She didn’t even cover up her voice, like she was just begging me to figure it out. God damn it! _ His internal screaming was cut short by a knock on his quarter door.

“Quaver? Uh.. hmm. I’m just going to open up in five seconds, so be ready for that.” He didn’t recognize the voice, and the girl’s behavior suggested that the two had barely ever interacted. She came in seven seconds later, holding a clipboard to her chest. “Hi, I’m Ashley, nice to finally meet you.” She held her hand out to him, and he sat up to shake it. “Sorry if I was interrupting something, I won’t be long.”

He nodded, and she smiled awkwardly.  _ Most people don’t know how to talk with such little feedback. Quinn’s remarkable in her stunning lack of restraint when it comes to talking to what amounts to a wall. God damn it, of course the other girl barely talked. _

“Right, so I’m representing a future Ward by the name of Shift.”  _ Oh my God. _ “She wants to meet some of you tomorrow before deciding her next move. Costumes on, of course, and just some casual hanging out. Do you have any interest? Don’t tell her I said this, but she seems to really want to talk to you in particular. Not sure why.” 

He nodded in response without a second of consideration.  _ So that’s how this is, then. Quinn figured I’d realize it was her and is sending her friend to find out.. something. Okay, I guess I have no idea what she’s doing, then. All the more reason to go and sleuth it out. _

_ God damn it, Quinn. _

* * *

Vincent walked into Mrs. Foster’s class, sat at his corner, and leaned back to get a few minutes of peace before he had to start secretly interrogating his newest friend. She and Reynold had been busy together for first period, and he didn’t share a class with her in second.  _ Not like I get much out of this class, anyway, and apparently Quinn doesn’t either.  _ He’d assumed she was just a paranoid but fairly smart girl who stumbled upon the truth, and was going to dissuade her from it, but it seemed he was wrong about her.

It would be a stretch to say that he was upset about it, but he did feel like a bit of an idiot. There were so many things pointing towards the now-obvious conclusion that it was difficult for him to see himself as anything but obtuse.  _ How long has she known about me? Is that why she finally decided to engage with me after years of just sitting at the same lunch table?  _ He leaned forward at the ring of the bell, surprised to see that Quinn had only walked in at that very moment.

He watched her while the day’s work was being handed out, then finished it as soon as he could. He beat her by a minute or two, but she didn’t seem to have been trying anywhere near as hard as he had been.  _ Is she a Thinker, then? That seems the most likely, at least as some element of it. She’s always been intelligent, though, from what I could tell, and I may be overestimating how hard it would be to deduce that I’m Quaver. I might just be looking for an answer that doesn’t put me at risk of a widespread outing. I’ll need to keep that in mind. _

_ Let’s get to it, then. _ He tore a piece of paper from his notebook and started the back and forth.

_ ‘do anything fun with your weekend?’ _

_ ‘Nothing you don’t already know. You got most of my updates via text.’ _

She looked uncomfortable, making it clear to him that they both knew what was going on, but couldn’t say anything about it. Whether it was because neither of them wanted their identities written on easily viewable paper, or because she had some ulterior motives, he couldn’t be sure.

_ ‘you messaged me a lot since reynold gave you my number, but then you just sort of disappeared. was just wondering if you were up to anything. homework?’ _

_ ‘Yeah, lots and lots of homework. Rey didn’t think to pick it up for me until Friday, so I had to do it all in a short period of time. I may have procrastinated a bit on it. What did you do during the conversational blackout? I hope I didn’t cause you too much trouble.’ _

_ ‘oh you know, the usual. watched some trash tv and had an awkward chat with my parents over dinner. no trouble at all’ _

_ ‘Oh, huh. I guess I never thought about you talking with your family, but that makes sense. I hope some day you’ll trust me enough to do that kind of thing. No pressure, though.’ _

_ ‘we’ll see’ _

Coming to an impasse, they ceased their discussion. She started working on her homework from last class, and he tried not to stare.  _ Am I making things more stressful than they need to be? Is this not actually that big of a deal? I’ve already determined that she’s genuine in her desire to join the Wards, so why am I acting like this? Is this all just because she figured things out before I did? Am I just being petty at this point? _

_ No. She found out about me, so others might have as well. If we have to move again over this shit I think I’ll scream. I don’t have any easy way to talk to her about this until she joins, though. I need to know what she knows without getting us both fucked over, and she seems to be thinking the same thing. Why is her friend coming to talk to people, but she isn’t? None of this makes any sense, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Fuck my power. _

* * *

He used to be extremely talkative, almost to an embarrassing level. The week following the earthquake forced him to completely change up his entire way of being. Did he now cringe at how he used to be because he’d  _ convinced _ himself he was happier this way, or was it genuine? Would the trauma have pushed him to a more serious demeanor on its own, or would he have eventually bounced back?

_ One loses such a fundamental piece of who they are when they stop being able to speak. How much of one’s self is defined by their relation to the others around them? When you can offer no retaliation, or one which shatters the fabric of spacetime, what do you become? Without that middle ground, how can you become anything but two extremes? One who offers no resistance, and one who serves an immediate threat to their opponent. _

* * *

Quaver checked his costume in the mirror, readying himself for the hangout. Maybe now he’d be able to get answers. Boon was coming along, presumably more with the intent to monitor everything than to participate. Rue and Mortar were also going to be there, for assuredly very different reasons. This was going to be a mess, but at least he’d get to learn something.

He left his room and headed for the lounge, passing Partition on the way.  _ Why isn’t he coming? If he’s not patrolling or training, why not take this opportunity to make a good first impression?  _ Boon was already there when he arrived, working on some tech which looked kind of like a dog if you squinted really hard and didn’t know what a dog looked like. He sat on a table near the couch, knowing that Mortar would want to take most of it up with herself and the new girl. Everyone else arrived over the next few minutes, with Shift coming last.

“Uh, hey everyone.” She spoke uncomfortably softly, like she didn’t want anyone to hear what she had to say. It reminded him of how Shy acted around new people, so he was able to sympathize well enough. He was a bit surprised to see that she was wearing the base Ward costume, but Rue took it a bit harder.

“Aw, damn, you’re in default wear?” She only opened her mouth halfway to talk to avoid spitting out her bubblegum. “I heard you were rockin’ pink, rare to see someone try to pull that shit off.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry. I’d rather not be known for that mess, it was kinda intended as an experiment and nothing more, but uh.. yeah.”

“Gooootcha.” She zipped the mouth of her costume shut and rolled her chair back to the corner. Though she was acting aloof, Quaver could tell that she was listening intently. Boon was doing roughly the same, but for very different reasons.

“Well,  _ I _ think you look cool regardless. Look how your muscles fill out the sleeves, I bet you could beat me up.” Mortar’s eyes lit up as she kept up the pattern of hounding anyone she could find to be her training buddy.

“Uh-” Shift giggled. “Thanks? I’ve actually never fought anyone before. Haven’t even really gotten into working out until recently.”

“Wow, you could’ve fooled me!” Mortar said. “Wanna play some CCF?” Shift stared at her cluelessly, and she jumped over the couch, turning on the television and FunBlock. “Crazy Cape Fighters. The second one, of course. The third sucks. I main Alexandria because she’s like me.”

“Like you?” Shift took a seat on the other end and held her hands in her lap. “How so?”

“We’re both Brute Movers, and we’re both girls. I wanna be like her when I grow up.” She placed the second controller on Shift’s lap.

“Ah, that makes sense. I’ve got a little experience with fighting games, so maybe you won’t completely kick my ass.” She laughed awkwardly and picked Eidolon, seeming not to realize that he was the most complex fighter.  _ Sure, she doesn’t know the game, but that should be pretty obvious. _ The match started and Mortar quieted down to focus, giving Shift the chance to talk to the others. “So, this is kind of weird to say, but I’ve never followed cape stuff all too much. I know the basics, but uh.. maybe a refresher on what you all.. do? If that’s okay.”

“I spend every waking hour either actively keeping people alive, or working on the equipment that lets me do that.” Boon was nowhere near confident in his abilities, but he’d gotten it into his head that he had to portray a generic hero complex to come off as a real leader. Rue unzipped and moved her chair a bit closer.

“I make people hurt. Same as I feel but worse.  _ Way _ worse.” Shift swallowed anxiously and lost the first round. She hadn’t yet managed to land a single hit.

“Right, I uh.. I’ve heard about you.”

“I should hope so.” Rue smirked. “Do I live up to the hype?”

“If by that you mean if you’re as intimidating as they say? Oh yeah.” She giggled nervously, and Rue sat back in satisfaction. “And, uh-” She shifted her head slightly towards Quaver, keeping her eyes on the screen. “What about you?”

“He warps space with his voice.”  _ Thanks, Boon. _

“He can’t- shit-” She dropped her controller as Alexandria flew on top of the winner’s podium and struck a victory pose. “He can’t speak for himself?” She turned to look at Quaver, and he stared into her.

“He tends to get a sore throat after shouting all the time. We save him the effort when we can.”

“Right, right.” She didn’t stop looking at him, so he kept looking back.  _ Not even going to hide what you’re doing, huh? What do you want from me? _ “Uh, sorry.” She shook her head and turned back to the screen. “Out of it.”

“I can jump in a perfectly straight line and stick to the surface I land on, and I take basically no damage when I’m moving fast enough, which I am  _ pretty  _ much all the time,” Mortar explained as she set up the next match. Shift had learned from her mistake and was trying out Legend. “How about you, what do  _ you  _ do?”

“Oh, it’s kind of complicated. I can teleport, but there’s a lot more to it than that.”

“We’ve got time,” Rue cooed playfully.

“Hah, uh, yeah, I guess we do.”  _ Wait, is she gay? How the  _ fuck  _ did Rue figure that out so quickly? Excuse me? _ “I, uh.. I haven’t been tested or anything, or however it goes, but I’m pretty sure I’m a Mover/Breaker/Striker. I enter this other world, kind of, where everything’s stuck in place. If I’m touching something or someone when I activate it, I can bring them in with me. I can move around, but I can’t interact with anything there. I, uh, the other day I used a pile of leaves to get up to the buildings where I met Quaver and Boon.”

“Yesterday, you mean.”

“Right, yeah.”

“Well hey, that’s pretty cool. You seem smart enough to make good use out of that. There’s some real dumbass capes out there.”

“Oh. I guess there would be, yeah. And, uh..” She’d held on for a while longer this time, but she inevitably lost the first round. She swore under her breath. “Uh, but, thank you. I make do, I guess.”

“You’d think stupid people would get the less complex powers, but then I get stuck with something as simple as pinching myself and staring down a few baddies.” Rue rolled her eyes and reversed how she was crossing her legs. “Meanwhile we have idiots like Magister pulling in half the continent because he doesn’t know how to strategize.”

“Magister?”

“Ugh, he’s just this magician-themed Red Iron goon who makes black holes. With a name like that, you’d expect him to be some kind of genius, but nope. I’m all for subverting expectations, but sometimes you should advertise shit as it is.”

“ _ Just _ black holes?” She grimaced. “God, what am I getting into?”

“Don’t scare off the new recruit, Rue,” Boon warned. She pouted. “You shouldn’t worry about him. Depending on the specifics of your power, you might even be able to safely solve the mystery of what’s on the other side.” He paused his tinkering for a moment to add emphasis to his next point. “Don’t take that as a suggestion, though. I don’t need that on my conscience if you get stuck.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.” He chose not to reply, returning to finishing up his dog.

“Hell yeah, nice!” Mortar shouted as Shift got her first knockout.

“Thanks, uh, but yeah. This is all kind of overwhelming, I won’t lie. I mean, not the meetup, but like.. the cape thing in general. This has helped a bit already, so thank you guys.”

“My pleasure,” Rue said. Nobody else pitched in a response, for various reasons.

“And, um. Quaver, we obviously haven’t talked much, but you seem cool. Sorry your throat hurts. It’s dumb that your power doesn’t include any like.. vocal cord Brute regeneration.”

“My tech helps him as much as it can,” Boon said, “but only as a side effect. I’m working on getting it to focus on that specifically without making a bot that crawls down your throat. The details are finicky, there’s far too many ways to choke someone. My healing’s no good if it kills them in the process.”

“Jeez, yeah. Sounds like you have a lot to think about.”

“With my power and role in the team? Most people would crack under the pressure.” At that very moment, Alexandria tossed an unconscious Legend over the edge, ending the game.

“Alright, I think that’s it for me. You’re really good at that.”

“You’re not bad either,” Mortar said, switching over to practice against bots. “Thanks for playing with me, everyone else is lame about it.”

“Heh, well uh.. yeah, no worries. It was fun.” She turned around on the couch and gave her full attention to Quaver. “You like.. games?” He squinted at her, and she looked at Rue for a second before shifting her eyes back to him. Always back to him.  _ Why are you looking at me? Why did Quinn send you? Who _ are _ you, even? _ “I guess not..?”

“What do you  _ want?”  _ His voice angrily squeaked out, almost embarrassingly. It would’ve lacked a punch if it hadn’t torn a rift from him to the television. The following silence accentuated reality’s slow creep back to normality. Everyone looked to him for an explanation, as if none of them had realized that something was up.  _ The others, maybe, but you, Boon? I thought you were better than this. _

“I just wanted you to not feel left out..?” Quaver immediately softened, his mouth hanging slightly ajar as he was faced with the reality that anything he could say would make things worse. He connected eyes with Shift, and she furrowed her brow. She shrunk into herself and looked down to the floor. “Ugh, I.. That’s.. not true.”

“Elaborate.” Boon turned his side of the pressure onto the new girl, giving Quaver some much needed relief. Rue and Mortar stood strong in their support, and Shift sighed.

“I know Vincent from school.” Thoughts raced through his mind. People and classes, anyone Quinn would know who could possibly be standing in the same room as him. Every girl, every- “And I think right about now, he knows me, too.”  _ Shit. _ He stared into the eyes of Quinn’s best friend, his  _ answer, _ and everything made far less sense.

“Fuck.” Rue backed away towards the door. “Tell me when the personal shit is done, I’m not here for this.” With that, she left. Mortar looked to Boon for backup, unsure of how to respond to the tension.

“Uh, come on. Let’s go make sure Rue doesn’t do something stupid.” He lead Mortar out of the room, briefly stopping to give a concerned look to Quaver and a small wave to the two of them. They stared at each other in silence for over a minute before Shift spoke.

“This.. probably seems really bad. The only reason I agreed to go along with Quinn’s little plan was because I was already wanting to do this and.. I didn’t think you’d actually be..  _ you.” _ She laughed awkwardly, and seemed to die at the lack of any real response.  _ Believe me, I get it. I have a lot of shit I wish I could say to you right now, too. _

“And.. because of that, you might be wondering why I’d be disguising myself as, uh.. as a girl.” He squinted and nodded. “Well, uh.. you know me as.. Reynold.” Though he’d already figured it out, hearing the name spoken aloud solidified the idea in his brain, where before he could pretend there was a chance of anything else. “I’m going by Riley these days. When I’m not at school, I mean. I’m.. transgender.” She waited a few seconds for some kind of reaction, but none came.

“I was going to tell the others, too, I promise. Just, not immediately.. I don’t want people to judge me like, uh.. like you probably are.”  _ Am I?  _ Something in him told him he should be revolted, some seventeen years of societal conditioning, but all he saw in front of him now was someone who was hurting. Instead of disgust, he was able to empathize with her in a way he’d never managed before. Something about the openness in stark contrast to how reserved Reynold had always been. He couldn’t define it, but he understood it. He shrugged; the closest thing to reassurance he could give her.

“You’re not mad? Or.. um, can I try something?” He raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t really buy the sore throat thing, so I was thinking.. maybe my power can neutralize yours..? It’s a little disorienting, so be aware of that. Quinn seemed to adjust pretty quickly, but you know how she is. I’m still not really used to it. Maybe if this works how I’m hoping but is a little too much you can just kinda keep your eyes closed?” He shrugged. “Right, well.. I’m gonna just..” She put her hand on his shoulder and looked to him for confirmation. He nodded.

* * *

_ Severance. _ Where all things are wholly themselves. Degradation of the barriers, pressing the question of who and what anything is. On their own, but overlapping. Cascading portrayals of one’s being onto all others, involuntary and unjust. Self-contained existence, ever shifting and colliding with all else.

“So, uh..” Riley’s voice bit into his thoughts with a clarity that made him wonder why he’d ever thought her to be anyone else, even with the work she’d put in to change it. “You okay? I’ve never tested this with anyone but Quinn.” He realized he’d been hunched over and forced himself to fix his posture, then nodded. “Okay, good. I guess.. give it a shot and let’s hope you don’t break my power or something?”

Vincent froze.  _ What do I even say? This should be some grand event, right? Shouldn’t I have my first unhindered words be something special? _ He rolled his shoulders back and stretched his neck.  _ Nah, fuck that. _

“Testing.” The two looked around and found that things had gone as planned. “Well, shit.” Riley gave him some time to adjust, and he wasn’t sure what to do with it. It had been so long since he’d had this freedom, and the lack of it had slowly changed him in a lot of indescribable ways. Now that he had this ability again, he found that he’d lost some inherent part of the knowledge of what to use it for.  _ I guess I get answers. _ “What’s going on with Quinn?”

“Well, uh.. I guess it depends on what you mean by that.”

“Why go to all the trouble to do this ‘recon mission’? Why didn’t she come with you if you two don’t have some ulterior motives?”  _ Wow, I really sound like shit, huh? _

“Ah, right, about that..” The lines of her face shifted around a bit, but he couldn’t tell what they signified. “Quinn doesn’t actually have any powers. I’ve just kinda been bringing her along like.. like I’m doing with you, I guess. She kinda keeps me grounded, and she’s better at uh.. At being a hero, I guess? She’s done a lot more good than I have, so far.”

“Wow, okay.”  _ What do you even say to that? To any of this? Am- am I dreaming? Is this a dream? No, there’s no way I could subconsciously come up with something that looks like this. _ “Well, fuck. You’ve kind of blown away all of my theories from the past couple days in just a few minutes.”

“Heh, sorry. If I’d known for certain that this was you, I’d have just told you all of this ahead of time.” She smiled awkwardly, but genuinely. “This is exciting, though, right? Now that this is out of the way, we can all just hang out together without any dumb stuff. And I’m.. I guess I’ll be joining the Wards soon, right? So you and I can.. do this kind of thing a lot, I guess.”

“That could be nice. I’m glad you weren’t lying about wanting to join, we can always use more Movers.” He squinted at her bundle of blue for a second. “And girls, now that I think about it.”

“Then.. you won’t tell the others?”

“Of course not. I’m not an asshole.”

“Ah, yeah, fair. I guess there’s a reason Quinn chose to be your friend.” She laughed to fill the silence and held her arm with her hand. “I  _ will  _ be telling them eventually, so that’s clear, I just want them to get to know me as..  _ me _ . Ashley thought it was a good idea.”

“Right, good. No offense, but I don’t think you could pull it off long term once you joined. Unless you wanted to be the weirdo who’s in costume all the time.”

“Eh, it’s.. yeah. None taken. I haven’t even begun to think about like.. any of that stuff. Hormones and stuff.” She must’ve read something on his face, because she seemed to tense up somewhat. “Er, sorry. I shouldn’t be talking about this stuff with you. At least not right now.”

“It’s chill. I don’t really get it, and I’m not sure I ever will, but you can still go off about it if you feel the need. I’m sort of just reveling in how weird it is to be able to talk to someone again.”

“Heh, yeah, that.. must be pretty strange. I guess that’s something  _ I _ won’t really get, too. Like I can imagine it, and I can think of how I might be under those circumstances, but.. there’s some knowledge inherent to actually living it that I won’t ever have. No matter how much it’s talked about.”

“Mm. You’re pretty smart.” She blinked in surprise at that.

“I- I am? Where did that come from?”

“I just get the feeling that you get overshadowed by Quinn a lot. She’s got that way about her, where she kind of just  _ exudes  _ smug intelligence. Not that that’s an issue with her, I think it’s a little charming, but I imagine that would have an effect on someone as close to her as you.”

“I guess, maybe.”

“So, just, you’re smart. Not in that same  _ ‘I just finished my homework from next week’ _ way, but in a more.. I guess you could call it real, but that sounds a bit pretentious in its own right. You get the idea, I think.”

“I think, yeah. Thank you.” She smiled, looking like she wanted to move around, but wasn’t sure what to do with her body. He nodded out of habit.

“So okay, I think I’m used to this enough now that I could walk around without puking my brains out. Want to go get the others and tell them we’re good now?”

“Uh, sure. We should probably just walk there in real time, though. I don’t want to freak anyone out, and.. it’s only been like a minute since things were really tense, for them.”

“Right, good point. Rue would probably be pretty pissed, too. You do  _ not _ want to be on the end of that.”

“You don’t have to tell  _ me _ twice.”

* * *

Vincent closed his laptop, concluding his self-inflicted research session on how to treat a trans person. He crawled into bed and grabbed his phone. Though he was tired after the day’s antics, he had something he wanted to do. He pulled up Quinn’s number and began writing.

_ ‘hey, this is serious. you’ve been able to talk with riley about how things went for a few hours now, so I’m going to assume you’ve done that. I’ve done some talking, too. you know who I am, and I know who you are, and the PRT knows both of those things themselves. you can’t talk with people about the shit you’ve been talking with me about. no one but Riley and I. and you can’t tell anyone what I’m about to tell you. and you need to delete these messages after we’re done. if people get ahold of your phone and you have anything from this left over, we’ll both be fucked in as many ways as one can be without the application of powers. got it?’ _

_ ‘Holy shit, that’s a lot. Yes, Riley and I have spoken a bit. I can confirm everything she said to you about me. Everything you said is understood, and I agree to your terms, so you can continue. Sorry about your voice.’ _

_ ‘it’s fine, been a thing for three years at this point. so, you’ve been talking about your theories a lot. I don’t want to lie to you, so I’m letting you know that before all of this tonight, my plan was to lead you away from that line of thought. I didn’t want to, but this information is dangerous. if it got out, who knows how many people would kill themselves in an attempt to trigger. (1/2)’ _

_ ‘I’ll stop beating around the bush, trigger events are caused by trauma, usually. not always, but it’s always something which pushes your limits. something that goes beyond what you’re able to handle. I guess the idea is that the power takes care of that, lets you handle it. but you can’t trigger if you’re intending to. no one knows why, but that’s how it is. you can’t force a trigger. maybe some day the PRT will decide to tell people this stuff, but it’ll have to be with both pieces of information very clearly stated to avoid misinformation spreading and getting people hurt. they can’t risk that right now. (2/2)’ _

_ ‘Fuck. I thought the first half was the case, but then I thought maybe it isn’t because of.. reasons. You can probably piece together that for yourself, but I don’t really want to say it explicitly because the SECOND piece of information makes that whole thing really embarrassing! I always knew something was up, I can’t believe I got so close to figuring it out. This is fucking wonderful. Terrible and embarrassing and has some really fucked up implications, but very very cool. Thank you for telling me this.’ _

_ ‘no need to thank me, it’s as much for your good as it is for the goal of keeping people safe. even most villains know that this shit is too dangerous for the public. I also think we should talk about your outings with Riley. that may not be my place, so if you say no I’ll listen, but I have some thoughts about it’ _

_ ‘I’m listening.’ _

_ ‘okay. you’ve probably already gathered that your arrangement won’t be able to last forever. probably not even the week. once she’s registered in the wards, there’s going to be a lot more in the way of threats for her. even just a casual walkaround is going to have the potential for some really awful people to come after her. I have no doubts that she can handle herself, Movers are about as survivable as Brutes, but having you around could cause a lot of issues. I can’t stop you from going with her on off hours, obviously, but I heavily recommend you come to terms with the fact that your presence will serve as a constant threat to the safety of the both of you’ _

_ ‘I’m way ahead of you. You don’t need to worry about me.’ _

_ ‘maybe not, but I’ve seen a lot of people get hurt from some really stupid shit. I know you’re smart enough to make the right decision, but I don’t know if you’re emotionally capable of it. whatever you do, just be careful.’ _

_ ‘I’m being careful! Can we talk about something else? This is annoying.’ _

_ ‘if you have something in mind. I should be going to sleep soon, so unless you’ve got an idea, I should head out’ _

_ ‘Ah. I guess, if nothing else, I just wanted to say thank you for Riley. All of it. You’ve made all of this significantly easier for her. I’m not sure if she would’ve genuinely considered signing up until a few months from now without your help. And mine, I guess, even if I didn’t do it on purpose. I can trust you more now, too, which is nice. You’re my second friend ever, and I’m glad that you’re turning out to be a great guy.’ _

_ ‘Vincent? Did you pass out?’ _

_ ‘I guess that makes this even easier. I was going to take the conversation from there into this next bit so this would feel less out of nowhere, but I guess me saying this right now serves decently well as the cushion for that feeling. I just figured, since Riley’s filled you in on her situation, that I should let you know that..’ _

_ ‘I’m gay. I’d avoided thinking about it for so long because of Sandra Squad’s teasing. I gave it some actual thought for a few minutes and, uh, wow. It’s really obvious. I partially don’t even blame them for being assholes about it. If you’re going to be an asshole to me, that’s certainly a pretty reasonable thing to target. I mean, well, maybe not, since gaydar is kind of bullshit, but.. on some level, yeah? I should probably stop before you end up with a couple thousand words to read in the morning. Goodnight, V.’ _

_ ‘shit, uh okay sorry I was asleep. I’m going back to sleep but you’re good i’ll reread in the morning to make sure I got it all but congrats on the self realization of stuff, i’m bi. goodnight’ _

Vincent shut his phone and tossed it to the floor beside him, then promptly fell back to sleep. He dreamt in blue that night.


End file.
